Unblended: A Beautiful Mess
by December
Summary: Sometimes, in building and re-building a family, you make a few mistakes. "And what a beautiful mess this is." The story from Derek's POV. Companion story to "It Was All About Love For".
1. Prolouge: Here We Are

_**Welcome to the second story in the trilogy that began with "It Was All About Love For". Like the first story in the series, this story has strong language and adult situations, so I'm rating it as "M", just to be safe. **_

_**It is important that you read "It Was All About Love For" before reading this story. Parts of this story will not make sense without that as a background.**_

_**I'll be updating this story once a month so that I can stay far enough ahead to have regular updates. And, again, the only thing I own are the Lawrence family (and probably Emily and her brother.) **_

**Unblended: A Beautiful Mess**

By: December

**Prologue – Here We Are**

"_**So, here we are. Here. We. Are."**_

_**- Jason Mraz, "A Beautiful Mess"**_

**November 27, 2042**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_4:15pm_

She never thought she'd see the day when she was glad she wasn't able to get out on the ice. Yet, that day, she wasn't ranting about St. Mary's hockey team co-opting her practice rink again, even though St. Mary's was Thompson's biggest rival. The moment she realized that she couldn't skate that afternoon, she was out the door and driving away in her car. She didn't even stop to ask her coach if there was other practicing that she could do instead. There was something more important to her than mastering the double toe loop and the triple axel waiting for her at home.

She had barely thrown the car in park and cut if off before she was at the door to her house. She had barely gotten in the door before she was running up the stairs. She felt a little guilty about not going to greet her mother first, as she normally did, but her mother would be there. Her brother? Her brother might not.

She had been excited about Mikey being home all day, but reticent to talk about it. Her friends had all wondered why she was more bouncy than normal, but she had only smiled. She didn't want to talk about Mikey being home just yet. She was almost afraid to. It made no sense, but part of her was convinced if she talked about Mikey being back with them, then he would leave.

When she reached Mike's room, she noticed the door was cracked. She opened the door without knocking, almost as if she didn't want to give him any warning she was coming in. What she found when she entered the room was a neatly made bed and almost no evidence of Mike having spent the night. For a moment, Emily was afraid her brother had left yet again without telling her goodbye.

Seeing his duffel bag sitting next to his desk and his cellberry sitting on top of the desk, allowed Emily to release the breath she didn't realize that she was holding. "Mikey? Are you in here?" Emily asked belated, sure her brother was around if his cellberry was there.

She didn't get an answer in return. 'At least I know he'll be back for this,' she thought as she picked up his cellberry. She was curious about why he left it. Obviously he wasn't one of those people who had his whole life programmed into his cellberry, or else it would be with him. Their father didn't have his life programmed into his cellberry and Emily didn't have everything in the cellberry that she had gotten as a gift last Christmas. Her mother, however, had the lives of the entire extended family in her cellberry; Daddy teased Mom about that often enough. Casey Venturi did have more stuff in her cellberry than her husband's personal assistant or her own manager combined. Emily wondered what Mike had in his.

As she picked up the cellberry and turned it on, she told herself that she wasn't snooping. Mikey clearly didn't have the phone with him and she needed to see if there was a reason to try to find him and get the cellberry into his hands right away. So it was a weak excuse, but it was one. And if Mike had locked his cellberry, it really wouldn't matter what she tried to do.

Amazingly, the PDA-telecom device was unlocked. She didn't know where to start looking. She ignored the links button, because who knew how often Mike used the internet feature. She also ignored the lifelines listing, because she thought that might be prying too much. But she did decide to look at the list of contacts in his cellberry.

The list was sadly short, only about ten entries. Her mother had over 60; her father had at least that many. Emily's own list fluctuated a lot, but averaged around 150. Since there were only ten entries, Emily decided to look at them. The first was just listed as "Canada embassy". Did Mike need to be able to reach the Canadian embassy for some reason? And which embassy in what country? The States maybe? He did know about their Thanksgiving holiday after all.

The second entry was for a Dr. L. This entry was flagged as a lifeline, one of four that was. After Dr. L. were listed an "Imani" and a "Jake", with no further notes, except that this Imani was also a lifeline. There was the expected ICE listing; Emily stopped short of checking to see what number was there. The next entry was labeled "Mom" with Sally in parentheses. This must be Mike's mother. Emily had actually never met her, although she had heard the name in passing.

After Mike's mother, he had a listing for Nana Abby. That surprised Emily a lot, especially as it was designated as a lifeline. Mike wouldn't have done that unless he had talked with Nana Abby in the last year. Mike had been talking to Nana Abby? She'd never mentioned it, not that Emily would have thought to ask. How long had Mike been talking to their grandmother?

She could have thought about that more, but being curious about the other entries, Emily continued. There was a listing for an "OIE"; Emily had no idea what that could even be. There was also a listing for a Pizza Hut. That one made Emily laugh. Her brother had take-out programmed into his cellberry! So did their father. Derek had numbers for the preferred take-out places in London and the other cities where he spent a lot of time, like Toronto, Ottawa, New York, L.A. and Detroit. The last entry was listed as "Sponsor Alex" and also had the distinction of being the last lifeline.

"That raised more questions than it answered," Emily huffed as she set the cellberry down. Somehow, she managed to knock over Mike's duffel bag. A grey t-shirt rolled out. Emily went to pick it up, to put in back not to see what it was. At least, that is what she told herself. After she picked it up, she unfolded it. Printed on the shirt in blue was "University of the Commonwealth, established 2010". Emily had never heard of that university before. She'd have to look into it. She also wondered why Mike had the shirt. Did he graduate from a university? Did he graduate from _that_ university?

Replacing the shirt and backing away from the desk, Emily looked around the bedroom as she thought. It did look like Mike might need a towel; she would have to ask him when he came back. While she was cataloging what things Mike might need to make his stay comfortable, she was also making a list of all the questions she wanted answered. Her father often laughed at her thought process, insisting that the laundry list of questions "was all Casey" and the way she researched a problem was "totally Ed's fault". The research file she had on her flash drive was probably influenced by her uncle as well…but her father didn't know about that file.

How long she stood in the middle of Mike's room in thought, she wasn't sure. Regardless if it was two seconds or two hours, her brother's voice startled her when he said, "If you are looking for something in particular, you can just ask. I might be willing to help you find it."

Emily jumped before whirling around to face her brother, glad that she had finished her information gathering before he had returned, "Mikey! You scared me."

Her brother shrugged as he came into the room. "Any particular reason you are casing my room?"

"I…I'm not!" Emily insisted. She wasn't casing the room. So, she had looked through some of his stuff, but that was rifling, not casing. "I just wanted to be sure you had everything," she told her brother, which was also true in its own way. It was one of her original purposes for being in the room, after all.

"And you couldn't have just asked me?" Mike raised an eyebrow as he sat on his made-up bed.

"But, if you needed towels or something, they could have already have been waiting for you," Emily smiled at her brother, thankful she had inherited some of their father's ability to bluff.

"Uh-huh," Mike replied.

"What?" Emily asked nervously. Maybe she was more like her mother than her father when it came to bluffing.

"I just don't think Venturi's training you for maid service," Mike shrugged

Emily laughed at that. "No, of course this wasn't Daddy's idea. Daddy wouldn't make up his side of the bed if Mom didn't insist. Besides…Mom has said that Daddy isn't allowed to determine my career path."

"Smart move on Mrs. Venturi's part, seeing how well Venturi did with me," her brother said nonchalantly, as if it were true.

To be honest, the statement shocked Emily into silence. Mikey was blaming their father for some failure in his life? Emily didn't understand a lot of her brother and father's relationship, but she did recognize bitterness and blame when she heard it. Those feelings and her reaction had her sinking into Mike's desk chair. "That's not fair, Mikey," she corrected her brother in a soft voice.

"Truth rarely is," was Mike's reply.

"It's not truth either! Mikey-" Emily found herself preparing to vigorously defend…someone, she wasn't sure who, but she didn't get the chance.

Mike held up a hand and Emily stopped. "You don't have to defend your father to me, Emily. I shouldn't have said anything."

'How do I respond to that?' Emily had to wonder. There was a lot she wanted to say, but she wasn't sure how to say it. "Dinner's in an hour," she blurted out instead as she stood up and walked toward the door.

"Thanks."

As she paused at the open door, the first part of the Mikey's reply rang in her head. He had called Dad _her_ father, like Derek Venturi wasn't something they had in common. Like they weren't a family. Maybe if Mike just remembered that they were all in everything together, then he'd stay? Regardless, she found she couldn't walk out without reminding Mike that he should have more than just his mother and Nana Abby programmed into his cellberry. "And Mikey…he's your father, too," is what Emily shared quietly as she left.

As she walked back to her room, Emily knew that she should go downstairs and help her mother with the special dinner for Mikey that she was no doubt planning. But first, she had to make a note. She couldn't ignore that blue and grey t-shirt from a university that she had never heard of. With a few Google searches she might be able to find out more about it, and look into it. Mike had that shirt for a reason. Maybe he managed to go to university and that was where he graduated from? Either way, that additional clue into her brother's life was more important to her than finally nailing a double toe loop.

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_10am_

Even if the place had been packed, he would have recognized the famous filmmaker right away. This was not because Keith had seen the Canadian's picture before or followed any of the general press on his work; although he did have much respect for the man based on the industry press on his work. No, the foreign director, like most directors, knew a lot about placement and space. Where and how he had chosen to sit in the outdoor seating of the Starbucks spoke volumes. Keith had to wonder if the director had any acting experience as well. At the moment, the person he was coming to meet was doing a great impression of exiled overprotective father.

Walking over to the well positioned gentlemen, Keith said more than asked, "Mr. Venturi? I'm Keith Lawrence. Thank you for meeting me here."

"Mr. Lawrence," the gentleman returned as he rose to shake Keith's offered hand. "It's nice to finally meet you in person. The twitter conferencing is always tiring after a certain point."

"On that we agree," Keith returned. "And you can call me Keith, Mr. Venturi. The only people who call me Mr. Lawrence are my accountant, my housekeeper, and my wife when she's angry with me."

"Only if you call me Derek," Derek Venturi replied. "My father is Mister Venturi."

"Okay, Derek," Keith smiled as he indicated that Derek return to his seat. Sitting across from him, Keith put his cellberry on the table in front of him, noting that his companion had a cup of coffee and a cellberry on the table as well. "I apologize for being late. My wife is a professor at the university here and she had to impart a ton of 'honey do' orders before rushing off to some accepted students' panel."

"I can relate to the laundry list of instructions from a wife. Mine is very good with that. She'll even e-send me the instructions later, just to be sure I have them."

Keith laughed, "Maybe I shouldn't introduce her to my Amanda, then."

After his companion stopped laughing, Keith found himself asking the question that he had been tossing around in his head since he first heard from Derek about a possible face-to-face meeting. "Why did you come all the way to the States? I would have come to Canada. You didn't have to make a special trip to my place of residence just to catch up with me."

"I was in the area, so decided to combine the trip," Derek replied.

"You were in D.C. for some reason?" Keith asked. "I didn't think there were any film festivals in the District about now."

"No, I was due to be here in Fredericksburg this week. My daughter is seriously looking at attending University of the Commonwealth in the fall. We are here for that accepted students' weekend."

Keith was a little surprised by that revelation. "Your daughter's looking into U of C?! I mean, it's a good school, given its age. And it is accredited. But I would have thought she would have been looking at University of Toronto or University of Western Ontario. And if she was looking at international schools, I would have thought she would be looking at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, NYU, or even UVA or University of Richmond before University of the Commonwealth."

"University of the Commonwealth has articulation and exchange agreements with all of the Virginia and Maryland schools as well as Bennett College, Claire McKenna, and a handful of what you would call 'ivy league' schools, if the brochure is to be believed," Derek shared with a raise of an eyebrow.

"That's true, but…" Keith shook his head. "Wow. Amanda's right. I really am a bad salesman. I'm really not selling U of C at all. And I actually think it's a good school."

Derek laughed. "I understand the surprise, though," the filmmaker shared as an aside. "I thought she would have ended up at our alma mater, Queens, or at U of T, since her aunts and uncle all went there. She was looking at a variety of places but after…well, after November, we all went through some changes. One of hers was insisting in attending University of the Commonwealth. To be honest, I have no idea how she heard about the university. It's not well-known out of the Virginia and Maryland area."

"No, not yet," Keith smiled. "I sometimes think my wife is trying to single-handedly change that, especially with her work with the Promise Beyond our Borders program. But U of C is working very hard in making their international education component the best in the world. Your daughter would be in good hands here."

"Good to know," Derek smiled.

"Although I feel your pain about your daughter not going to your alma mater. My daughter didn't decide to attend any of the schools her mother or I attended. She's actually a rising sophomore at U of C. Shocked the hell out of her mother that she decided to go there and not somewhere else. I didn't complain because that made everything so much cheaper and daughters are expensive."

"Ain't that the truth," the foreign director smiled in agreement.

"So, why don't we get to business? This is probably the first among many meetings, and I'm sure you don't want to hang out with me all day."

"Sure. So, you mentioned wanting to work together?" Venturi started back up where their last twitter conference had left off.

"Yes, I do. I've been impressed with what I've read and seen by you. And I wanted to do something a little different. Producing the same old 'blockbusters' and 'Academy Award edgy' movies for the major players and studios is getting old. I wanted to mix it up and do something with someone truly independent. And you wanted to do something else besides award-winning docs and thought pieces?"

Derek Venturi shrugged. "Thought I'd give mainstream a try. Sure, I've won a few awards for the things I've done…but after November, I wanted to do something different. I think we all did."

Keith's internal radar went off at Derek's second mention of November, but he decided not to press. Whatever happened in November was giving him a chance to do something different with this cutting edge director. If Keith was ever going to move out of the box of being a "black producer" for "black movies", he had to work on something to shake things up.

So lost in thought, he almost missed Derek's question. "Did you see any interesting scripts or ideas for us to tackle?"

"I looked through what I had," Keith admitted, "but hated everything. They were all so done or clichéd or hackneyed or just bad. I thought we might want to create the concept and hire writers to write it. You know, so it is original all the way around?"

"That's not really all that new for me," Derek pointed out.

"But it is very new for me," Keith explained. "And it might add a little extra spice to the movie. But I'll make sure it stays mainstream."

"And you know writers just sitting around waiting for a story?"

"A few," Keith hedged. "And your wife writes as well, doesn't she?"

"Novels and poetry, not screenplays or movie scripts," Derek corrected.

"But I'm sure she could help in a pinch."

Keith's companion was silent for a second. But, just as Keith was going to back down from his idea and float some of the less awful pitches he had received, Derek shrugged and said, "So, where is our original concept coming from?"

Maybe he was a better salesman than he thought, Keith reflected. It looked like Derek was willing to go all original. But, as his family would point out, Keith wouldn't be Keith without pushing the envelope. "Actually, when I was thinking about ideas, I remembered something you said about one of your award-wining documentaries."

Derek looked a little surprised, "Which one?"

"The one on teen drug addicts," Keith shared. Shocked at how quickly his would-be partner's expression went from surprise to wariness, Keith pushed on. "You mentioned in some interview that the documentary was motivated by a story of a real family. Maybe we could use part of that family's story as our inspiration-"

"No," Derek said.

"I'm not saying we take their story and over-sensationalize it or anything. It's just a common struggle that could be explored through a fictional story-"

"No," Derek repeated.

"Is it that you don't think the family would let you use their story, even as inspiration? I realized they trusted you with their story, but they must know that you would handle it as tastefully as you did all the stories in that documentary. And I haven't produced any tasteless trash. We'd take good care of the story. I could even talk to the family-"

"It's not that the family doesn't trust me," Derek shook his head, "although, given everything, they probably shouldn't. It's just a private story."

"Sure, I understand that. But that story could help so many families going through the same thing. Or at least help the parents-"

"Everyone blames the parents," Derek insisted.

"Well, they do very often. But this could be our chance to address that. Maybe-"

Derek raised a hand and Keith fell silent. A lot of expressions flitted across Derek's face. Then he finally said, "Okay. If I tell you the story that inspired me to work on the documentary…well, you'll see why we can't use it."

"Or at least not as the story. The idea might be in there somewhere."

"Or not," Derek suddenly seemed to look a little queasy. Keith wanted to ask if he was okay, but guys tended not to push other guys about their feelings. Discussion of feelings was a female thing.

"If the story is really that –"

"No, it's just that the story is personal. That's the main reason I wouldn't talk about it when asked."

"Personal? From what little I've heard, your daughter sounds like a wonderful kid."

Derek smiled a little, "Emily is Emily. She surprises me all the time. But the story isn't about my daughter."

"So, this is a nephew or niece or cousin who inspired your look into teen drug use?"

"No. It was my son."

"Your son?" Keith blinked. He wasn't aware that Derek Venturi had a son. Admittedly, he hadn't ever read Venturi's bio, but mentions of family usually show up in press releases and discussions.

"He was my son from my first marriage," Derek explained. Keith nodded in response , more to encourage Derek to continue than because he knew that Derek's son was from a previous marriage, although Keith did remember hearing that Venturi's current wife wasn't his first. Derek continued, "When he was born, I thought I'd have a blond version of me running around, although indefinitely cooler."

Keith nodded again, this time in understanding. As a parent you always hoped your children would show the best parts of you to the world and be better than you could imagine. At times he saw his daughter as a more perfect version of his wife, with a few of his good qualities thrown into the bargain. Of course Derek would wish the same for his son.

"Maybe he could have been a great person, but I fucked up the end game." Although said in an off-handed way, it was clear that this idea upset Derek. He was looking off in the distance, not at Keith. His hands were in fists instead of resting flat on the table. And there was a sheen to his eyes that Keith made sure not to notice.

"You are sure about that? Your son lives with you and your family then?"

"No," Derek replied softy.

"With his mother?"

"Not to my knowledge, no," Derek answered. "But who the fuck knows? He's talked more to her than me; I know that at least. He picked up some of his habits from her."

"She's an addict." From Derek's tone, Keith managed to pick up that much.

"Claims to be clean. Last time I saw her was at the screening of that teen drug documentary. We didn't talk long, but she mentioned that she had been going to AA."

"When was the last time you saw your son?" Keith found himself asking.

"November," was Derek's reply.

Keith took a deep breath. Obviously, he'd walked into a minefield here. But after you are halfway across the shaky bridge, you push on to the end. "Maybe you should start this story at the beginning. When was your son born?"

Derek got a far away look in his eye as he began to relate his story. "He was born in November. November second in twenty-sixteen, very early in the morning. We'd been in the hospital for hours. Sally, his mother, was in labor for almost a whole day. We were all exhausted when she finally had the baby. So, I let her rest and I proceeded to call everyone to celebrate."

Keith smiled and he remembered how much he gushed about Imani to the whole world after she was born. "Who did you call first?"

"Casey," Derek laughed. "That probably should have told me something. At the time, I couldn't think of anyone better to share my joy with. I didn't even think waking Sally and 'gushing' with her would really do it. So, I pulled out my cell phone and woke the princess up in the middle of the night to tell her about my baby boy. It was only of the happiness moments of my life."

"So, start with that conversation, then," Keith prompted and then sat back to listen.

- to be continued -


	2. Chapter 1: Where You Feel Alive

_**Here is the first chapter of the story. In general, this story will be mostly from Derek's and Keith's points of view and parallels "It Was All About Love For" pretty closely. If you haven't read "It Was All About Love For" yet, stop and read that first. You'll need that background to understand this story.**_

_**This story is rated M for the issues and material covered in it (to be on the safe side) and for the language.**_

_**Oh, and each chapter will have a quote for a real song that is on the story "soundtrack". If you have the song (or iTunes), I recommend listening to the song while reading, to help set the atmosphere.**_

_**And updates will now be twice a month instead of once of month. Thanks for reading.**_

**Unblended: A Beautiful Mess**

By: December

**Chapter 1 – Where You Feel Alive**

"_Keep runnin' runnin' with all of your might. To the scenes where you feel alive."_

_- Emm Gryner, "Stardeep"_

**November 2, 2016**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_3am_

"Hello?" her voice sounded raspy and vague through the phone when she answered. It amazed him that her early morning voice didn't sound as bad as almost everyone else's he knew – his included.

Not that he'd ever tell her that.

"You sound really awful. You know, there are probably dogs howling somewhere. Wait…I think I hear them."

"Who is this?" she asked groggily.

"You don't know who this is?! I'm wounded. See, they leave the country for these 'great opportunities' and forget where they come from."

"Derek?"

The young man holding the cell phone smiled at the question…and at what he was still watching through the glass in front of him. "And Space Case clues back in."

"De-rek! It's 1am here! Wait…so it's 3 there. Is everything okay? Nothing's wrong with Mom or George or Marti or –"

"Everyone's fine, Case. Take a deep breath," he laughed at her panic.

"So why -? Derek, if you seriously called me at this hour just to mess with me-"

"Would I do that?"

"Yes! In fact, you have before."

"Okay, okay. I have called you at crazy early hours in the past, but I have a good reason this time."

"You'd better."

"I'm surprised you haven't figured it out yet," Derek replied as he smiled and the squirming bundle he'd been watching through the window.

"What-?"

"Casey, think for a minute. What did Sally look like when you last saw her?"

"Sally? Well, she looked happy; I mean, it was Thanksgiving and all. And she was glowing – I guess pregnancy agrees with her – and she had the cutest maternity dress I'd every seen. Although how she could move in those heels at eight months pregnant, I don't know –"

"Okay, stop with the fashion run down and think about what you just said."

"I don't see what you – Oh!" the woman on the other side of the phone began to squeal. He had the hold the phone away from his ear for a second. Looking through the window at the squirming bundle frown a bit, he had a feeling the squealing penetrating through the glass. 'I know,' he mouthed at the bundle. 'She hugs, too.'

It took him a second to remember to return the phone to his ear, so he probably missed some babbling. But he did hear her ask, "So Sally had the baby?"

"Yes. I have a baby boy. He's…he's amazing Case," Derek Venturi couldn't quite keep the awe out of his voice.

"Well, tell me about him, already."

"He's an active one. I don't think he's quit squirming since they wrapped him in his blanket. He's 7lbs and 10 oz. He's 20 inches. His eyes haven't opened yet, so we are still betting on the color. Edwin has twenty dollars on brown, by the way. It even looks like my boy has some hair on his head."

"What color?"

"It's very fine, but our guess is blond."

"Oh, Derek. He sounds beautiful."

"He is, Casey. He really is."

"What did you and Sally finally decide to name him?"

"James Michael Venturi. But we're calling him Michael."

"James?" Casey asked after a pause. "You agreed to James?"

"What?"

"I'm just surprised. You had said very early on that you weren't naming any of your children after any exes that you or anyone else in your family had had. Especially if the relationship ended badly."

"Your point?"

"Come on, Derek. You have to remember James. You were the first one to call him an ass."

"'Cause he was."

"As much as I hate it, you were right about that. Given that whole…mess, I would have thought you would have issues with that name. Considering how much I cried on your shoulder during that break-up."

"First, didn't we promise that that whole week never happened?"

"Derek-"

"And I was overruled on this. James is also the name of one of Sally's brothers. The one who died in that wreck last year."

"Still, I'm surprised. Oh…did Sally start to cry when you began to say no?" she wasn't laughing when she asked the question, but she was pretty close to it.

"Hey, hey. There is nothing wrong with trying to keep a hormonal, pregnant woman happy. It was a self preservation thing."

"Uh-huh."

"Casey-"

"I just think you are a softie."

"I am not."

"Yes, you are. I'm surprised that you were able to tear yourself away from your son for a few seconds to call me."

"Who said I did?"

"You must have because – wait," Casey's voice began to take on a lecturing tone. "Derek Michael Venturi, please tell me you are not using your cell phone inside the hospital!"

"I'm not in the NICU or the heart attack ward or anything-"

"Derek! Cell phones can interfere with medical equipment-"

"There is some debate about that-"

"- and you shouldn't be using it inside the hospital. Really-"

"Case! It's fine. Do you really think, if I thought it was dangerous that I'd do it around my son? I know you think I'm totally responsible sometimes-"

"Not totally," she grudgingly interrupted. "You have grown up some," she allowed.

"But do you really think I'd put my child in danger to make things easier?!"

There was silence for a moment. Then Derek heard her sigh. "No, I don't. I'm sorry. It's just that cell phones near medical equipment make me nervous for some reason."

"It's okay, Case."

After a moment, she laughed a little. "So, are you so consumed with playing besotted dad that you made this call while gazing through the glass at your son? You are a total softie."

"First, I'm am not a softie-"

"Sure you aren't."

"And, second, Michael Venturi is amazing. The whole nursing staff is in awe of him. I'm convinced he's already picked up a nurse or two and he's not two hours old yet."

"Beat your record, did he?"

"McDonald-"

"So, I have to arrange a trip back to see this eighth world wonder, huh?"

Derek snorted a bit at this. "Well, duh."

"Okay, but in the meantime you better send me lots of pictures."

Derek smiled as he gazed on the topic of conversation. It looked like his son Michael had finally settled down into a version of active sleep. "Sure, Case. Pics, vids, everything. He's just – Wow."

Casey giggled a little on the other end.

"Oh, Case," Derek breathed out. "He's so active, but so little. What have I gotten myself into? Can I – Can I do this?"

It occurred to Derek much later that he was ever only able to ask that question to his mother, his father, and Casey. It didn't occur to him until much, much later that Casey was the first person he asked, and that he never shared his unease with Sally at all.

"Oh course you can. Venturis always win, right?" Casey asked light-heartedly. "Seriously, though, you can do this. You are going to be a great Dad to little Mikey there."

"Mikey? That's the best nickname you can come up with?"

"You were always the more creative one in that department." After a pause, Casey asked. "Is Sally near you? I'd like to talk to her, too."

"No, she's asleep. She's exhausted. We've been in the hospital for at least eighteen hours. I didn't want to wake her."

"Well, I'll talk to her later. Do you have more people to call?"

"Yeah," Derek ran his empty hand through his hair. "We rushed to get here and then with everything in the labor that wouldn't end, I didn't have a chance to call anyone to tell them what was happening, except for Sally's parents. Mostly because, in between her cursing and crying, Sally demanded to see her mother. Edwin was, oddly enough, already here for reasons I don't want to know, but I haven't told anyone else."

"So, I'll let you go so that you can call George before Edwin does."

"Yeah."

"And congratulations Derek."

"Thanks, Case. Thanks."

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_10:15am_

Keith smiled at the foreign director in front of him. "Our children do have a way of turning us into saps and scaring the hell out of us."

Derek gave a little off-centered smile in response. "I felt even more nervous when Emily was born. I take it you went through something similar with your daughter?"

"Absolutely. I vacillated between being in awe of my baby girl and being terrified that I was going to break her. When I told my Amanda I was nervous, she snorted and said that Imani was going to be Daddy's girl and I could get over myself and learn to change a diaper or two."

Derek blinked. "Your wife sounds…interesting."

"She sounds like the piece of work that she is. But, somehow, we work. We call each other on our stuff, support each other, drive each other crazy, make each other sane. It's odd. She'll knock sense into my head, but she'll protect me where she can," Keith laughed. "I try to return the favor."

"Now she sounds like Casey. Is she an overachiever, too?"

"She has two masters degrees and a PhD."

"So, yeah. She sounds a lot like Casey."

"Actually," Keith began as he tried to transition back to the story Derek was telling. "How did Casey become your other half? Legally, I mean. I take it that when you called her about Michael, the two of you weren't together?"

"That," Derek blew out a breath he must have been holding, "is complicated and a long story. It didn't all happen at once. Part of it happened before I even met my first wife, some of it happened later. I'm not really sure when it all fell together."

"So I guess you can't start at the beginning?" Keith asked

"I'm not even sure where the beginning is," the Canadian replied honestly.

"So, how does that story fit in with the story with your son? I mean, after the phone call, where else do the stories touch?"

Derek shrugged. "I guess it would be when Casey called me."

"Another phone conversation."

"Yeah. Casey had been out of the country preparing to pursue one of her dreams. But, after being away for some years, she decided that she was coming home. I was the first person she called when she made that decision – which also should have told us something. But at that point, I guess, I wasn't even envisioning what happened. At that point, helping her only seemed to make sense."

**November 4, 2019**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_2:30pm_

"Whee! 'gain, Daddy. 'Gain!"

Derek laughed as he threw his little boy in the air again and caught him. As he flew the little boy around in a circle as he laughed, Derek was never so glad that he had been a small time director for years. It wasn't so much that being a director gave him the ability to set his own hours so that he could spend time with Mike, although that was a nice side benefit. No, acting as a one man directing team meant that he had to carry around heavy camera equipment and lug a heavy camera through space constantly. It is the only reason he had the stamina and muscles to play with his very active son.

"Higher, Daddy! Higher!"

Derek laughed. "Okay, Buddy. Higher it is." The boy had been wanted to play all day and had been running Derek ragged for two hours – without sugar! Derek had to wonder if he was this much of handle at three. If he was…well, he was getting his father a very nice Father's Day gift next year.

"Fly through the air like hockey puck. Like hockey puck!"

Derek laughed again. This had become a favorite phrase of his son since that Stanley Cup game that the two of them had watched last season. Of course, the first time Michael had made this request, the phrase wasn't nearly as clear. And his "p"s sounded like "f"s…which was a bit of a problem when company came to visit. Derek could still remember the look on Nora's face when she heard Mike request to "fly fu air like hockey fuck".

After that, Sally had worked with their son to help him learn to pronounce the letter p.

As Derek was swooping the boy through the house, the phone rang. Holding the ever active boy with his right arm, he grabbed the phone with his left. "Yo?"

"You actually answer the phone that way?" a familiar voice asked in disbelief on the other end.

"It's effective."

"Effective? It's a little immature. Most people say 'hello', you know."

"It is effective. I said 'yo' and you still knew to start talking. Mission accomplished."

"Still, there are protocols and –"

"Did you call me to lecture me on phone manners, Space Case?"

"You are going to call me that forever, aren't you?"

"Pretty much," Derek agreed. "So, what do you want?"

"What makes you think I want-"

"Because you do. So, what do you want?"

"I don't really want something-" Casey began.

"Uh-huh. But?" Derek asked.

About this time, his son's (lack of) attention span, was starting to show. "Fly again?" the boy asked as he tugged on Derek's shirt.

"In a minute, slugger," Derek promised as he hugged the little boy.

"Mikey's with you? Aww! How is he?" Casey asked.

"Still over-excited from his birthday party, no doubt," Derek replied, although he didn't feel nearly as aggrieved as he sounded.

"How was the party? I know Sally was all excited about it."

"Remember that party of Marti's that Sally took over?"

"I remember the party of Marti's Sally helped plan," Casey retorted.

"Whatever you want to call it, that princess party? It was just practice. Sally planning a little boy party for her son? It was crazier than when she was planning the wedding. It was a three ring circus – literally at some points. I have no idea why she thought having pony rides was a good idea."

"No wonder you sound tired!" Casey laughed.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Derek replied.

"Just that Mike's an active little boy, Sally's an energetic new mother, and you are getting old." Casey laughed.

"I'm not getting old! And Michael appreciates all the active ways I'm part of his life."

"Of course you aren't getting old." Casey agreed in a tone that implied that she still though he was getting old.

"But Michael does want to finish appreciating my ability to lift him over my head. So let's get back to this help you don't need."

"I haven't asked for help!"

"Yet."

"…Okay, yet. But I just thought I'd tell you. I'm…I'm coming back to London."

That surprised Derek. He knew Casey wasn't happy in that desert where she'd gone to "find her voice", but for some reason, he hadn't thought she was thinking of coming back to London. "Good. I could use another babysitter."

"De-rek!"

"Are you saying you wouldn't look after Michael?" Derek gasped in fake shock. "You said he was a cutie."

"And he is, but I have a feeling you wouldn't pay me."

"Think of it as that 'feel good family moment,' you always wanted." Derek said. He laughed at Casey's not so ladylike response to that. "So, when are you getting back?"

"Probably tomorrow. Mom and George will hopefully let me stay with them until I get everything organized. And find a job."

Derek was a little surprised that Casey hadn't had everything already set. She must really want out. He ignored the unsettled feeling in his stomach at that thought that Casey was so unhappy that she'd rush home on the spur of the moment. "Well, there is no help for it, then," Derek sighed as if he were making a big production.

"There is 'no help' for what?"

"I'm going to have to help you find a job and all of that stuff. You'll over-think the whole thing if left to your own devices. It will take you twice as long with twice as much drama. Just think of it as doing my part for family peace."

He had expected some push back on that. All he got was an, "Okay. I'll call you when I get into town….Thank you, Derek."

After he hung up the phone, he looked down at his son. Michael hadn't really been able to spend any time with Casey because she was so much further away than everyone else. His son had inherited some of Derek's snooping tendencies (or Edwin's need to research), because, returning Derek's look he asked, "Who on phone?"

Derek laughed. "That was Casey. She's coming back to London to stay. You'll get to meet her soon. I'll make sure she doesn't squeal over you too much. And I'll make sure she doesn't get too much keener on you, either."

That appeared to satisfy Mike's curiosity for the moment. "Fly, Daddy?" the little boy asked.

"Absolutely," Derek laughed as he lifted the three year old over his head again.

- to be continued -


	3. Chapter 2: Piece of My Mind

_**Here is the next chapter of Unblended. The story is almost finished in draft form. For now, I'll still be updating every two weeks, but if I finish another chapter in the next few weeks, updates may move to once a week.**_

_**Again, this is rated M for the issues (and the language) that show up in the story. If you have access, I recommend listening to Everything But the Girl's "Piece of My Mind" while reading this chapter.**_

_**As always, I love and welcome reviews.**_

**Unblended**

By: December

**Chapter 2 – I'll Give You a Piece of My Mind**

"'_I'll give you a piece of my mind. And you're not too old to take it.' Oh, just a piece of my mind."_

_- Everything But the Girl, "Piece of My Mind"_

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_10:45am_

Keith looked across the table at Derek. "So Casey called you when she got back?"

"Yeah," Derek confirmed. "It's a good thing she did, because she had no idea how to mount a job search in London at all. You'd think it'd be second nature to a keener, but not so much."

"I take it you helped her look?"

"Helped her look, antagonized her while she was looking. One of those. It depends on who to talk to about it."

Keith fell silent for a second, not sure where to go from that point. But then he remembered the question he asked that got Derek to tell the story of the phone call in the first place. "I take it that your wife was very against the idea that you helped Casey."

"Not initially, no. In fact, at first, she was all for it. Saying it was my family responsibility, or some nonsense like that."

Keith blinked. "Your 'family responsibility'?"

Derek sighed. "My father remarries when I'm fifteen and suddenly all I hear all about responsibility from more females in my life than I ever cared to."

Keith laughed. "That grousing right there sounds like something my Amanda would say. But she doesn't like her stepmother at all."

"Hey, hey. I like my stepmother a lot. Nora is great. Put up with me and my sibs when we were younger. Has been an amazing grandmother. Of all the females in my life, she is the last one to bring up the r-word."

"Okay," Keith interrupted. "So your stepmother is amazing and Sally was initially all for you helping Casey. Did something change? I'm still not connecting point A to point B."

"Hell," Derek said as he ran a hand through his hair. "_I_ have problems making those connections. One day, Sally just snapped on me and that was the beginning of the end."

"Just snapped? You had no warning at all?"

"Not really," Derek shrugged. "I mean, Sally had been having a few more drinks over the course of the week. And she had begun to whine that I wasn't home enough, but as she had done passive-aggressive whining since we started dating in high school, I didn't pay attention to it. Maybe I should have, but I don't think that would have changed anything."

**March 20, 2020**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_7pm_

Derek sighed and he let himself into the house. It could not be this hard to find a house in London. Casey insisted that she didn't want to stay in her current apartment for the rest of her life, but she had found something wrong with every place the realtor had shown them. The realtor was beginning to have problems dealing with Casey's special brand of crazy. Next week, when they went out, Derek was going to make Casey pick something.

"I'm home," Derek called as he closed the door behind him.

"Daddy!" Mike shouted and he ran from the kitchen to hug him.

"Hey, Mikey. How's it hangin' slugger?" Derek asked as he ruffed his son's hair. After his son broke away from the hug, Derek took a closer look at him. "Um…why is your face covered in peanut butter and jelly?"

"Because you interrupted dinner," Sally said as she came out of the kitchen. "Dinner that we put off an hour waiting for you to get home."

"Sorry about that," Derek apologized. "Nut Case was going back and forth with realtor over some zoning housing thing with the last place he showed us. And, since she hadn't eaten anything since we set out this afternoon, I had to make sure she ate so she didn't wreck driving back to her apartment."

Sally snorted.

"Okay, so she might wreck anyway. Casey's driving skills have gotten interesting from the years she was in the States, but at least she won't total her car because her stomach was growling."

He expected Sally to laugh at that, not to say, "I can't believe you!"

"Wait, what?"

"You are late for dinner because you were spending time with Casey again?"

Derek looked at Sally, knowing that he probably looking as confused as he felt. "Um…didn't I just say that? You knew I was being dragged all over creation because Casey's looking for a house. You were the one who said it was a good idea."

"Yeah, what the fuck was I thinking?" Sally muttered.

"Sal-" Derek raised an eyebrow and he looked over to Mike, who was still in the hall listening to them avidly. Okay, maybe not avidly, as he seemed to be hopping from one foot to the other. But he was an active little boy and jelly had sugar in it, according to Casey.

Sally belatedly realized Mike was there as well and, apparently, didn't want to have the rest of whatever she felt she needed to say aired in front of the boy. "Michael, go back to the kitchen and finish your dinner."

"I am finished," Mike returned.

"Then go up to your room and play with your toys," Sally said.

"But, Daddy just got home! Can't I hang out with him?" Mike asked.

"Michael, don't talk back. Just go," Sally insisted.

Mike turned to look at Derek, almost as if Derek could over-rule Sally. Well, he probably could, but Sally obviously had something on her mind, and Derek had learned over the years that it was better to let her talk it out on the early end than to listen to her huff and whine about whatever the problem was for weeks. "Listen to your mother, slugger. Okay?"

"Okay," Mike didn't sound happy, but he dutifully trudged up the stairs.

"So, Sally," Derek turned to face his wife, "now that our son is on his way to his room, care to explain what caused you to drop the f-bomb back there?"

"Like you don't know," Sally countered.

"Um…I don't know," Derek replied. "That would be why I'm asking."

"I need a drink," Sally said as she walked away from him to the living room, where she poured a glass of wine from an already opened bottle.

"How many have you already had tonight, Sal?" Derek asked.

"Uh-uh. No. You don't get to lecture me about my drinking when you were out for hours with Casey."

"You make it sound like there is something wrong with me being out with Casey."

Sally turned to him, suddenly irate for some reason. "You are married, Mr. Venturi. You said vows in a church."

"I realize that, Sally. What does that have to do with me helping out my stepsister? You were even the one who said I needed to step up and do some things for my family occasionally."

Sally snorted again. "Casey is not your stepsister."

Derek looked at Sally like she had grown three heads. "Excuse me, what?"

"Derek, you forget that I know you. I've lived with you for years. Marti is your sister. Elizabeth is your stepsister, especially after that big brother act you pulled with her fiancé last year. But Casey? Casey is something else to you entirely."

"What are you saying, Sally?" Derek asked.

Sally walked away from him to look out the window for a few minutes. Before Derek could press her again, Sally began to speak. "You know how, before we had Michael, I was a community reporter for 'A' News?"

Derek nodded, although Sally couldn't see him from her position. It seemed that he was only confirming a rhetorical question, because Sally continued to talk.

"A year or so before I left to have Michael, I did something on open houses and local realtors. I met Jan Stanford through that story. We stayed friends. We still get together for lunch. I thought he was a great realtor, it's why I recommended Casey use him-"

"I'm not sure where you are going with this, Sally."

Sally went on in a scarily detached voice. "We met for lunch last week while you and Mike were out at that video taping you had to do. As always, he started talking about his clients. He was complaining about two in particular." Here Sally laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. "He said – he actually said – that he didn't mind that they were so couple-ly during the showings, but between the guy's snarking and the girl's dithering, he wasn't sure he'd ever make a sale. He told me that he even felt weird watching them discuss a showing. 'When they weren't fighting, they were baiting each other. I wasn't sure if they were about to jump each other or kill each other,' he shared."

"So the man has several weird clients. Explains why he has the patience he has with Casey, but what-"

Sally just shook her head. Derek could see the hand holding her wine glass tightening. "The kicker for me was when Jan said he wasn't even sure that the couple liked each other. 'He called her spacey, spazzy, and prudish in the space on twenty minutes,' Jan told me. He thought it was some strange kind of foreplay. He thought I agreed with him when I didn't say anything."

"Um…okay, so the over-worked realtor was complaining that Casey was driving him crazy. He got some stuff wrong in there – not surprising, given what he showed us today – but I don't understand-"

"Derek, you'll tell me the truth if I ask you a question?"

Derek blinked as Sally turned to face him. "Um…of course."

"Are you sleeping with Casey?"

Derek stared at Sally in shock. What in the hell prompted that question?

"Answer me, Derek."

"Are you accusing me of cheating on you?"

"Answer the question!" Sally shouted back.

"You are accusing me of cheating on you! With my stepsister?! Is that what you think of me?"

"You have never thought of Casey as your sister," Sally retorted. "At least admit that much. Casey has never been your sister."

"Okay, fine," Derek said. "I have come to see Casey as a friend. She used to be the bane of my existence. But to accuse me of being unfaithful to you? Or to accuse _Casey_ of doing anything like that to you-"

"Do NOT sing Cassandra's praises to me right now," Sally warned.

"I'm not singing 'Cassandra's' praises. I'm pointing out that you should trust her character, since you can't seem to trust _mine_," Derek growled back.

"You still haven't told me if you are sleeping with Casey," Sally pointed out.

"Because I'm not going to dignify that question with a response!"

"So you are sleeping with her?!"

"Sally, seriously, what the fuck-" Derek began, but Sally interrupted him with a strange laugh.

"Patrick warned me about this."

"Patrick?" Derek asked. "You ex Patrick, who basically treated you like shit the last time you ran into him?"

"Patrick," Sally began, "told me that even if I married you, Casey would always hold first place in your heart. He said that no one like me could ever turn you from Casey. I told him he was wrong," Sally knocked back the rest of wine. "But what the fuck do I know? I thought Patrick loved me at one point, too."

"Sally, that's fucking unfair. I married you-"

"Only because Casey was going out to the American West and you didn't have the guts to marry your stepsister and move out of the country."

"So, she's my stepsister now?" Derek sneered.

"Get out," Sally said softy.

"What?"

"Get the fuck out of my house," Sally said in a louder voice.

"It's our house and I've done nothing wrong-"

At this point, Sally threw her empty wine glass at Derek. He ducked and it crashed into the wall and broke. "Get the fuck out now or I'll make a scene."

"Fine," Derek backed away from Sally toward the front door. "I'll leave to get you some time to calm down. And to sober the fuck up. When you are thinking normally, you'll be surprised we even fought over this."

"When I'm sober, I'm contacting my fucking lawyer. Now get out of the house before I call the cops."

Derek left after that. He had wanted to stop and talk with Mike before leaving, but Sally was behaving erratically and she screamed at him not to speak to Mike. Not wanting his son to see this ugly fight, Derek left for the night, leaving a note in Mike's school bag saying he'd see him in the morning.

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_11am_

"Holy shit," Keith said quietly.

"Yeah," Derek agreed.

"And she just jumped to the idea that you were cheating with your stepsister?"

Derek nodded. "It came out of left field for me. First, she said to go help Casey find a job, find a place to live, find a house. Then, she accused me of cheating on her because I was doing what she told me to do." Derek shrugged.

Keith nodded in solidarity. Even men who never divorced or remarried had stories of when the woman in their lives made no sense, or when they "went off" for no understandable reason. "So, she threw you out?"

"For the night, yeah."

"Where did you go?" Keith asked.

"I ended up at Casey's," Derek shared after a pause.

Keith merely nodded. It was silent for a few moments. Then Derek asked, "You aren't going to say anything else?"

Keith shrugged. "What else is there to say? You ended up at Casey's."

Derek laughed. At Keith's puzzled look, he shared, "If you were a girl, you'd probably said that going to Casey's didn't help my case and made me look guilty."

"It probably didn't help your case, but it's not like you went there to start cheating because your wife thought you were."

"You trust that much in the strength of my character?" Derek asked.

"Nah. You just don't strike me as the 'you think that? Well I'll show you' type of guy. I think you like messing with people's head more than confirming their stereotypes. If Casey really was your friend at this point and you were confused, you probably went to your female friend to see if she could explain to you what happened."

Derek smiled. "I did try to talk to Casey about the fight. I think I may have even said, 'You're a girl. Maybe you can translate this from girl to English," but I couldn't talk about it. I didn't want to voice what Sally thought of me. Of her. Of both of us. And I was angry."

"This did lead to you marrying Casey, though?" Keith asked.

Derek sighed. "Eventually, yes it did. And that just pissed Sally off more. It really wasn't my plan. Sally filed for divorce after that fight…and the divorce proceedings were hell. And then there was the appeal of the decree. The fights were legendary in a bad way. Casey, for whatever reason, stood by me through all of that crap. At the end of it all, I asked her to marry me."

"And she said yes?"

Derek shook his head. "Not at first. She seemed wary about it. I guess a divorced man is damaged goods in a way. I told her she had to marry me. She said this wasn't a case of Venturis always winning. I told her she had to marry me for my sanity. She said she couldn't marry me solely to preserve the sanity she wasn't sure was there. It wasn't until I used the l-word that she relented."

Keith laughed. "Don't talk about your feelings much, do you?"

"Don't even like the f-word. You?"

Keith smiled. "More than you, but Amanda had to work to get me to admit to the l-word out loud when we were dating. It wasn't until we had Imani that using the l-word got to be easier. But we are guys."

"Exactly."

"We'd rather fix stuff than talk about our feelings."

"True."

"So," Keith said after a pause. "What happened with your son after the divorce and your remarriage?"

Derek groaned. "For about three years, I lived in a purgatory called joint custody. I had so many fights with my ex-wife I lost count. And visitation weekends were hell. But one weekend when I went to pick up Michael, everything changed."

"Changed how?"

"That's…a long story."

Keith signaled a waiter as he sat back. "We can order lunch and I have all day. Tell me about the weekend that changed everything."

- to be continued -


	4. Chapter 3: If I Could, I'd Protect You

_**Since I'm about three-fourths of the way through with this story, I'm moving to weekly updates. If I finish drafting the story before the end of September, I might update faster than that. **_

_**This chapter parallels chapter 2 ("And By the Pool that Night, Apparently") in It Was All About Love For, this time telling the story from Derek's point of view. This story is rated M for language and situations (just to be safe). Also, I recommend listening to Regina Belle's "If I Could" while reading this chapter. If you don't own it, you can find it on YouTube. (You can find everything on YouTube.)**_

_**Thank you for reading and reviewing.**_

**Unblended: A Beautiful Mess**

By: December

**Chapter 3 - If I could, I'd protect you**

"_If I could, I'd protect you from the sadness in your eyes."_

_- Regina Belle, "If I Could"_

**March 16, 2024**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_9am_

These weekends were always the hardest. And they were the hardest for two reasons. First, they seemed to be proof that he'd failed at something important. Listening to his friends, it's possible that maybe he shouldn't have married Sally in the first place. But, as that would have meant that he wouldn't have Mike, he didn't really subscribe to that school of thought himself. This related to the second reason he hated these weekends. The second reason he hated these weekends was because they seemed a tease. For almost 72 hours he got to spend time with his son…only to have to "return" him at the end of the weekend and continue his fights with Mike's mother to have any part in Mike's life. It was hell. A hell he only went through for Michael Venturi. A hell he only survived because of Casey McDonald Venturi.

Derek had had a queasy feeling in his stomach leading up to today. He wasn't sure why he was uneasy until he pulled up to what was now Sally's house.

It looked like a scene from a very bad horror movie or one of those "drunken life at college" movies that were really popular when he was a child and teenager. People were sprawled all over the lawn. Derek just stopped the car in front of the house, not even really trying to parallel park. It was nine am on a Saturday morning and, given what he saw in front of him, everyone else could fucking drive around his car. He had more important things to do than park perfectly.

As he got out of the car, Derek quickly realized things were worse than he thought. The front door was wide open. What the fuck was Sally thinking? Michael – eight year old Michael! - was there somewhere. At least Derek thought he was. But, if the boy had been surround by drunks and who knows what else and the door had been left open for hours, who knew where Mike was and if he was okay?

"Mike! Sally! Mike! Where are you?!" Derek began to call. His first shout was pretty loud, even to his ears, but it got louder and more panicked as he didn't hear a response. He was also getting angrier at Sally for endangering Michael the more he saw.

For example, the first thing he saw as he walked through the open door was people passed out on the stairs. The mirror in the front hall was cracked. There was trash all over the place. And Michael still wasn't answering. For a moment, Derek stood in the living room, shouting while his mind was running a mile a minute. Where was his son? Was he okay? At this point, Derek was ready to tear apart the entire house to find him. It was only the prompting from the "Casey voice" that was still in his head from high school that encouraged Derek to move systematically through the house.

He eventually found Michael in the kitchen

When he walked into the kitchen Derek noticed three things simultaneously: a) the state of the room, b) Mike on the floor, and c) the pile of broken glass on the floor. The he realized that Mike was picking up said glass. With his bare hands. Barefoot.

"Shit," was all Derek could get out around his emotions. Wanting to protect his son, beginning now, Derek reached down and lifted Mike off the floor and into his arms.

His son, who seemed to be shaking a little bit, said in a quiet and scared voice,

"Dad, I'm really sorry about the kitchen."

It pissed Derek off that Mike was apologizing. It pissed Derek off that Mike was nervous in any way. It pissed Derek off that Mike was even in this situation in the first place. Given all of this general anger, all Derek could say in reply was, "Where the hell is your mother?"

"I…I don't know," Mike answered quietly.

This made Derek see red. Holding tightly to his son, Derek decided he was going to find Sally and tell her off right then. Her "recreation" had no business being around their son, much less frightening him. Wondering what Sally was thinking (if she was sober enough to think) Derek began to call for her again as he walked out the open back door.

Once in the backyard, Derek found himself by the uncovered but empty pool. At the bottom of the pool was a mess. There were five people who were lying at the bottom of the pool. Two of them looked conscious. He'd start with them

"Hey," Derek shouted at the couple entwined at the bottom. "Where's Sally?!"

"Ow. Ow!" the clearly hung-over woman muttered, "Why he is shouting?" she whispered as she blinked and held a hand to her head.

"Easy on the volume, man," her companion replied.

"Where is Sally?" Derek repeated slowly and menacingly.

"Who?" the woman asked groggily

"The person who hosted whatever the hell happened last night," Derek explained, now even angrier. Did Sally just let anyone into the house? Did she have questionable strangers around his son?

"Oh yeah," the woman muttered as she crawled over her guy and blinked. "Killer party. She's around here somewhere."

"Over there, I think," the guy pointed to someone else on the floor of the pool.

Derek turned his body in the direction the man was pointing. There was Sally alright, dead to the world at the bottom of the pool, still holding a damn martini glass. It was his son's whimper that reminded Derek that Mike was with him. Mike didn't need to see this. Derek quickly turned so his son couldn't see his mother in this state. None of this really helped Derek's anger level.

Derek must have said something, because the formerly drunk people kept talking. All he knew is that he needed to get Mike out there.

"Look," Derek tried to say calmly, "if she comes to and realizes she has responsibilities to people besides those that work in the local bar or booze store, tell her Derek has her son. If she thinks to ask." Then Derek turned away and carried his son to safety, not stopping to see if his statement received a response.

Derek walked through the wreckage of the house without speaking, holding tightly to his son. When he got to the car, Derek opened the door and gently settled his son in place. He even buckled Mike in. Mike sent him a confused look, but otherwise he looked unharmed. Mike had bed head and looked a little dazed, but he didn't look injured. Mike was okay, thank God.

In spite of Sally's behavior, not because she had done anything to protect their son.

Derek slammed the car door and just vented his anger for a moment. He was so pissed. He was scared. He wanted to scream, so he let loose a string of profanity as he tried to calm down. He needed to be calm to drive – Mike was in the car, after all. After a few moments of "creative French", Derek took a deep breath, walked around to the driver's side and got in.

Derek didn't start the car immediately. He held the steering wheel for a few minutes, reassuring himself that Michael was okay. Given where his mind was, Mike's voice startled him at first. Derek also found himself surprised at what Mike said. "Dad, I'm really, really sorry for the mess."

After Mike's quiet statement, Derek turned to look at him. Many feelings flashed through Derek's heart, so many that he couldn't speak at first. And…was he tearing up?! Stupid feelings. He needed to fix this mess. Hell, he needed Casey. Shit, after what Derek had just seen, _Mike_ needed Casey. Sure, Casey might over-organize and go all keener on them. But at least the nightmare reel in Derek's head would stop for a moment. At this current moment, however, he needed to say something to his son.

After one attempt, Derek managed a "Let's go," hoping that sounded reassuring. Then he stared the car.

It was a silent ride. Mike didn't speak; Derek didn't push. All Derek could focus on at the moment was getting Michael without harm to the safest haven Derek had in his life. Luckily, the drive to his home wasn't a long one.

When Derek arrived at his house, he carefully parked the car. Taking another deep breath, he focused on the most important thing first, getting Michael to a safe place. Derek got out of the car and walked around to Michael's side of the car. As he unfastened Mike's seatbelt, he noticed (again) that his son wasn't wearing shoes at the moment. Not wanting Mike to cut his feet on a rock or something on the way to the door, Derek lifted him into his arms. Mike briefly squirmed – Derek was expecting him to object to being carried; Derek would have at his age! – but remained silent. After that, Derek just focused on getting Michael through the door. He noticed that Mike had buried his head in Derek's chest. Derek wanted to say something soothing, but he didn't know what to say. Honestly, he couldn't multi-task effectively between trying to protect Mike, trying to comfort Mike, and still being pissed as hell at Sally, so he didn't try.

As they entered the house, Derek finally released a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He felt Michael stir, but Derek wasn't focused on that. As he gently lowered his son to the floor, he thought he heard Casey's voice. He did feel her presence, even though he was a little too busy with his task to look around the room. They were both safe. It was probably that feeling of safety that reminded him of his anger.

Slamming the door, Derek focused his anger into his fist and punched the door. The pain that shot through his arm was the first thing that stopped him from hitting the door again. He might have kicked the door, however, if Casey's voice hadn't pierced his consciousness at that point. "Derek!" he heard her concern in that one word. "What happened? Why are you here? What's going on?"

For some reason Derek took her questions as a chance to unload. He was angry and things were a mess. So he just spit everything out, not worried about whether or not he made sense. "Do you know what she did?!" Derek began, trying to stay calm, yet not quite managing it, "She threw a party. Sally threw some fucking, crazy, out of control party with my son in the house. In fact, I arrived to passed out drunks, puke, rotting food, an open door, and _my son _on the floor, freaking picking up glass! In bare feet! Alone! What the fuck-"

He would have continued if Casey hadn't stopped him. "Derek! Derek Venturi, listen to me." That was all she needed to say to get him to listen. Even though Casey used to complain that Derek never listened to her, he always had – more closely than she ever knew. "You need to calm down. Alright? You're scaring everyone."

That statement gave him pause. He probably was a little out of control now that he was home. Michael didn't need to see him like that. At that point, he remembered Michael was in the hall with him. Casey had noticed Michael at the same time. Derek stopped and looked at his wife interact with his son.

"Hi," Casey said as she smiled at Michael. "You're Mike, right?" she asked, although she already knew who she was. She had seen pictures of him since he was a day old. She had so much video of the kid that she had a separate flash drive for it. She was the one who came up with his nickname, although he didn't know it. But, because of Sally's issues and Casey's need to keep the peace, she purposely never interacted with them when Michael came to visit during his weekends. That was a third reason Derek hated these weekends. Casey was a part of his life; he wanted to share his entire life with her but hadn't been able to in an effort to keep the peace for Michael.

If keeping the peace meant finding Mike in situations like what he saw that morning, screw keeping the peace.

As Derek was reflecting on his situation, he noticed his son nod shyly at Casey. Michael tended to get quiet in situations where he was nervous, but Derek was sure Casey would have him talking soon. She probably wouldn't stop until she got Michael to smile. Michael would be just fine in her care while Derek got his head together.

"Have you eaten yet today?" Casey asked his son.

Mike shook his head.

"Okay, why don't you come with me and we'll get you some breakfast?" she offered as she smiled again. She then held out her hand.

Mike shyly took Casey's hand and Casey led him away. At first Derek decided to follow, but then thought better of it. He needed a few minutes to pull it together. Walking into the living room, he looked out the window as he tried to sort through his thoughts and f-fff-feelings. The only thing that Derek was sure of at that moment was that Michael was safe and that he needed help to keep him that way. He'd need Casey – he always needed Casey – but he'd also need his own father.

The growling of his stomach also pointed to the fact that he needed food. Since he was calmer, he decided to go to the kitchen to see if he could get Casey to feed him in addition to feeding Mike.

He arrived just in time to see his eyes confirm what his nose had begun to tell him. Apparently, Casey had decided that today merited more that fresh fruit and cereal. "Chocolate chip pancakes?" Derek asked.

Casey shrugged, "I figured that the men in the house needed them today."

Moments like this, he was glad he'd gotten his head together and married the elder McDonald sister. He walked over and gave Casey a hug. "Thanks, Case," he said quietly.

Casey didn't reply immediately, or say anything at all. She just hugged Derek back. She knew him well enough to know that he probably didn't want to spend a lot of time in emotion city. After a few seconds, she pointed to the stool on the far right of the kitchen island that sat just behind a plate stacked high with pancakes. "We don't have any whipped cream," she warned.

"That's okay," Derek said as he sat down. Amazingly enough, as he sat down behind the food, he found he couldn't eat right away. There was still too much in his head that wasn't settled. So, he figured if he shared a few things out loud. "I have to talk to my father."

"On a Saturday? Why?" Casey asked.

"To challenge custody," Derek replied.

Casey didn't respond immediately. She understood that this was not something that Derek would undertake lightly. After a few beats, she asked, "You think it's come to that?"

"I'm not taking him back there, Case. No way in hell. Sally is not fit to be anywhere around my son." On that point, he wasn't compromising. He'd probably have nightmares about how he'd found things this morning for years.

Mike stopped eating and he dropped his fork on the plate. The sound of the fork hitting the side of the plate seemed louder in the quiet kitchen. Derek wasn't sure what had caused Michael to suddenly stop eating, but Mike cleared that up himself very quickly.

"Dad, I'm really sorry about the house," Mike began as he turned to look up at Derek. The fear on the poor boy's face hurt Derek to look at. It was obvious that Michael was trying very hard not to cry or shake. He wasn't doing too well on either front. In addition, his voice began to shake as he seemed to beg, "But, I can go back and clean it. And I won't let it get that bad again and-"

Derek was thrown into a horrified silence. He didn't understand why Michael felt the need to continually apologize for how Derek found him that morning. In addition, he had no idea what to say and he had no idea how to handle "almost tears" in his son. It was Casey who stopped Mike's verbal diarrhea and shaking. Patting him on the shoulder, Casey looked at Michael in the eyes and assured in a soothing voice. "It's okay. It's okay. You aren't in trouble. And we aren't doing anything until after breakfast."

While Derek was glad that Casey was trying to calm down his son, there was one thing he needed to be sure was clear. "I'm not taking him back there, Case," Derek repeated. The party was at least part of the reason Michael was in this state. Derek was not going to purposely put Michael back into a situation where it could happen again.

Much as she had tried to calm down Mike, Casey rubbed her hand up and down Derek's shoulder. Then she kissed him briefly and said, "Right now, we are going to have breakfast. Later, you'll call your father and we'll figure out what to do. Okay?"

Derek relented. He still couldn't eat much, but he was able to get a few mouthfuls down. Mike was able to get a few mouthfuls down, as well.

After breakfast, Casey took charge of getting Michael ready for the day. (Derek had never been so grateful that Casey was keener enough to know Mike's sizes and taste and to have a few complete outfits there for the boy. There was no way in hell Derek was going back to Sally's to get clothes – that was a fight waiting to happen.) Derek took that time to call his father. It was probably one of the oddest conversations the two have them had ever had.

"Derek! What a surprise. I would have thought by now you would have picked up Mike and be holding court at a Tim Horton's or something."

"Hi, Dad. Actually, Mike's the reason I'm calling."

"So he wants to spend to time with his favorite grandparent, does he? Of course he does. You will just have to accept that you will never be funnier than me."

Derek snorted at that. "First off, Dad, Edwin is funnier that you. So is Marti. And Lizzie. And Nora. Probably even Casey, if push came to shove-"

"Ouch. Have a care for an old man's ego, son."

"But," Derek said is a more serious note, "I need to talk to you about Mike. About his situation."

"His situation?" his father had picked up on something in Derek's voice. "Did something happen when you went to pick up Mike this morning?"

Derek opened his mouth to explain, but couldn't seem to put things in words without getting angry again. "Shit."

"Derek?"

"I…can't talk about it over phone, but I think – I think Mike needs to living with me."

"I know that the joint custody decision was not your first choice and that Sally hasn't necessarily made things easy, but-"

"No. Something's changed. Can you come over? So we can talk about it?"

"Sure, son. But where is Mike now?"

"Being taken in hand by Casey," Derek answered.

"By Casey?" George Venturi asked in surprise. Like the rest of the McDonald-Venturi clan, George knew that Derek generally didn't have Michael around Casey during Michael's visits, in the effort to keep the peace with Sally.

"Yeah. So can you come by? I – I could use some help with this."

"Have you called Marina?" his father asked. Marina Delacruiz was Derek's divorce and family lawyer; she had been recommended to Derek by his father when Derek was looking for legal representation after the last blow up with Sally that led to his divorce.

"Not yet. I really just…want to pick your brain and ask you a few questions first." Derek hated how his voice was beginning to shake a little.

"Okay. I'm on my way. And I'll bring Nora. She hasn't seen Michael in a few months. I think she's missed spoiling her grandson."

"Thanks Dad," Derek said and then ended the call.

When his father and Nora arrived twenty minutes, Casey had Michael ready for the day. And the boy did seem to smile more and become a little more like himself when he saw that his Grandpa George and Grandma Nora had come to visit. While Nora and Casey kept Michael occupied, Derek explained to his father what the morning had been like. And, as his father settled down and helped him plan legal strategy, Derek decided that his father was getting the best Father's Day gift that Derek could afford that year. He was lucky as hell to have been born to one George Venturi. Derek just hoped and someday his son could say the same thing about him.

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_11:32am_

Keith found himself nodding at the end of the story. "So, did your father and your lawyer help you get things sorted?"

Derek shrugged. "Pretty much."

"But, you had to return your son to his mother in the interim, I bet," Keith sympathized. "That had to be tough."

"Actually, I didn't."

"You didn't? You didn't what?" Keith asked, confused.

"I didn't return him to his mother," Derek clarify.

"Well…shit. I agree with you, but…shit."

The foreign director didn't reply.

"Did your first wife just roll over and let you have your son? Amanda has told me about some of the screaming matches her parents had ended up in when she was younger, and Amanda's mother didn't seem to have the issues with her ex that I'm guessing Sally had with you."

"Well, I wasn't Sally favorite person during that time," Derek smiled ruefully. "Still probably not, to be honest. But she didn't just roll over. I honestly expected a frantic or pissed off call from her on Saturday after she sobered up. I think it pissed me off a little more that she didn't call on Saturday, concerned about Michael. But she showed up soon enough."

"So when did she show up and what happened?"

"She showed up Monday night, pissed and probably buzzed, demanding Michael back. I refused. We had a screaming match on the front lawn of my house."

Keith winced. "Bet your neighbors loved that."

Derek laughed. "I definitely got some feedback about it the next day."

"Did Michael…witness any of the fight?" Keith tried to ask as delicately as possible. To be honest, he wasn't even sure he had the right to ask the question. In some ways, Amanda would be better at this conversation, given that her parents had split when she was younger. As Keith's parents were still happily married, he had no frame of reference for this kind of thing at all. And some of the stories Amanda (and her friends who were products of divorce) would tell sounded horrible.

"No. Not for anything that Sally or I did, though," Derek looked away from Keith, almost as if he was ashamed to admit this. "We were screaming for all we were worth. But Nora and Casey were there and they took Michael with them while Sally and I had it out. I didn't even notice Michael wasn't there until later," Derek shrugged, but somehow the shrug looked painful and not nonchalant. "Left on my own, I probably would have scarred Michael sooner, having him witnessing this fight."

"So…Michael lived with you from then on?"

"Until he was eighteen."

"So he lived with you, and you and Sally still had joint custody? How did that work? Did Sally back off?"

"Sally did NOT back off. But no, I wasn't comfortable with joint custody at all, so we went back to court to challenge it."

"What was that like?"

Derek took a deep breath. Keith noticed that Derek suppressed a shutter. Luckily, the waiter finally appeared at this point to take their lunch orders, so that gave the Canadian time to pull himself together. But after Randy walked off, Keith sat back and waited. Thankfully, Derek didn't need anymore prompting, as he briefly closed his eyes and then opened them as he opened his mouth to discuss custody hearing.

- to be continued -


	5. Chapter 4: Maybe as Good as it Gets

_**Here is the next chapter of Unblended. Like the last chapter, this parallels an event from "It Was All About Love For", so parts of this will seem familiar. **_

_**I don't know if this could actually happen in a Canadian courtroom (I don't know what family law is like North of the Border). I think, maybe on the story's anniversary doing a revisit and maybe changing this scene if I find out the Canadian system is very different…but for the moment, here is the custody battle from Derek's point of view.**_

_**Thanks to everyone for reading. I love comments and thoughts. And, like the other chapters, if you have access to the song, I recommend listening to Everything But the Girl's "Heart Remains a Child" as you read. Happy Monday everyone.**_

**Unblended: A Beautiful Mess**

By December

**Chapter 4 – Maybe As Good As It Gets**

"_Is this is grown up as we ever get? Maybe this is as good as it gets."_

_- Everything But The Girl, "Heart Remains a Child" _

**April 16, 2024**

_London Ontario_

_Canada_

_10am_

In the past few years, he'd seen the inside of the family courtroom more than he ever thought he would, growing up. Hell, he hadn't even had to go to court when his parents divorced, since George and Abby ended their marriage amicably. But this on-going mess with Sally? He'd been to court at least three times since the end of their relationship: once to divorce her, once to appeal the divorce decree, and once to lobby for joint custody. And now he was back again and this time he wasn't leaving until his son was safe with him.

Casey had realized that today was going to be hard on him. She went back and forth over whether to come with him to court. "I want to be there, for both you," she insisted, "but I don't want to make things worse. If my presence hurt your case or made things more difficult, I'd never forgive myself." It was his father's insistence that Casey's presence would show that Derek had a stable family situation in which to raise Michael that finally convinced Casey to come. And he and Mike had needed her to even get out the door that morning.

Derek wasn't sure if Michael really knew what was going on. They had never talked about it. Derek would begin to bring up the subject, but then couldn't figure out what to say. So, instead of saying anything, Michael would get a trip to the ice cream parlor, or some other outing that would "ruin his dinner". Casey asked him once why he had taken Mike for donuts instead of talking about the upcoming trial. His answer was "Because _I_ can't make chocolate chip pancakes". Casey had rolled her eyes at this answer, but – when Derek gave Mike junk food instead of explanation – she'd just shake her head and pat Derek on the shoulder. So, as of this moment, no one had told Michael what was happening in the courtroom that day.

The three of them had entered as a family unit, but Mike had gotten a little ahead of them. That was probably why Sally managed to get to him before Derek and Casey were in the main hallway. He'd missed the initial greeting. By the time he saw the two, Sally was hugging Mike and saying, "It is so good to see you. I've missed you so much. My little boy." Sally was also squeezing the boy; Derek expected the boy to turn blue. He and Casey started over together to where Mike was with his mother. They arrived just in time to here Sally begin to set up her position.

"Are you okay? Mom said you looked okay, but you never know. Have you been eating? Getting to school okay? Are they treating you okay? They haven't locked you in any rooms or any-"

"Sally," Derek objected. "Don't."

"Don't what?!" Sally stood, looking almost as angry as she had that Monday night when he hadn't let her leave with Mike. "Check on how my son is?! Given that he was practically kidnapped and I haven't seen him in a month-"

Derek was not going to let Sally get away with that objection, given that he was the one who took drastic action to protect their son. "He was not kidnapped, Sally. You've known where he was the whole time." And it was true. Sally had known where Mike was the whole time. The fact that she didn't go looking for him when she regained consciousness on Saturday proved that she'd hadn't really worried about her son.

"You took him out of the house without telling me, shoeless, with nothing but the clothes on his back!" Of course, Sally wasn't going to back down without a fight. She could be stubborn and manipulative, even back when they were in high school. It might have maybe been cute – in hindsight only – to demand that your boyfriend write you a song. It was not cute to try to argue semantics and procedure when Michael's safety was an issue. And Derek was going to remind Sally why he was taking such a hard stance on this.

"I took _my son_ out of a dangerous situation where he was picking up glass in a wrecked kitchen while you were passed out at the bottom of the pool!"

"So you say," was her reply.

Derek was briefly shocked into silence. Sally could not be implying that the party didn't happen. She wasn't serious, was she? Was she high?! She looked sober, but there is no way she thought - "Are you are accusing me of making that up?!" Derek replied in shock. He hadn't noticed that he had even advanced on Sally until Casey grabbed his arm to stop him. When he looked back, Casey just shook her head.

But Sally had much more to say – to accuse, really – than just the strange denial. "I think you love the idea of using my son as a weapon when it suits you. Or maybe someone wanted a family?" Sally sneered in Casey's direction. "It is nice that she's here, though. Nothing quite like _sisterly_ support, is there, Derek?"

Derek swore he couldn't see for a second, he was so angry. Casey's shocked gasp next to him didn't lessen the anger. How dare Sally even imply that there was something wrong with his relationship with Casey?! Casey was not his sister; Casey was his wife. And to suddenly attack Casey that way was unfair. This was about Derek and Sally and Michael. No one else. No matter how often Sally had whined about Casey, it was never about Casey. And Sally was not allowed to attempt to tarnish Casey in any way. Derek would protect Casey from that maliciousness.

He honestly didn't know what he would have done next. He was so angry at Sally, he had even forgotten that he was in a courtroom. But, at that moment, he felt a hand on his other arm and another familiar voice say, "And, on that note, I think I should take Mike with me for a minute, hm? He can talk to me about that book he's reading for school." Derek blinked and was able to see his mother take Mike's hand and lead him away. He didn't even know that she would be there today, but he was glad. Maybe his father called her? Or Casey? Probably Casey, Derek decided. It would be something she would do.

"Wait a minute," Sally began to object.

"Sally, I'm the most neutral person here," Abigail Seater Venturi replied

"…She's right," Casey agreed after a pause.

Derek didn't care if his mother was neutral or not. He just knew Mike was safe with her. Michael was safe with any of his grandparents, even Sally's parents, Derek had to concede. Besides, given the fighting that Derek and Sally had done in the past, Derek wanted Mike with someone who could look after him.

"Fine, then. I'll see him again soon again anyway," Sally relented as she glared at Derek.

After his mother had led Mike away, Derek took a deep breath and tried to be the better person. "Sally, can we at least be civil about this?"

"Civil? Civil?! Are you serious?"

"Yes, I'm serious. No screaming, crying, name-calling. This is all about what is best for Michael-"

"What is best for Michael?! Derek Venturi, you are trying to take my son away from me. How the hell is that best for Michael?!" Sally practically spat the last part.

Casey's hand tightened on Derek's arm, as if she knew he would do (or say) something stupid if she didn't restrain him. That not so gentle reminder – Casey was stronger than she looked and that arm was definitely going to be bruised in the morning – might not have even been enough, but his lawyer and Sally's lawyer had both arrived at that point. After the opposing counsels had acknowledged each other, Sally's began to speak to Derek, making it obvious that he had overheard part of the conversation with Sally. "I'm very glad to hear that you are willing to be civil, Venturi."

"What's your point, MacQuire?" Derek had never liked Sally's lawyer. The man seemed to ooze slime and was the embodiment of every negative thing he'd ever heard about lawyers. Growing up as George Venturi's son, he hadn't believed most of the complaints about those in the legal profession. Interestingly enough Casey didn't believe most stereotypes about lawyers either, which was proof that Dennis really was a stand-up guy, regardless of how his first marriage may have ended. Sally's lawyer, however, was the justification for every lawyer joke in existence.

Charlton S MacQuire pulled something out of a pocket in this suit and handed Derek a piece of paper. "Why don't we end this whole nasty misunderstanding right now, hm? Just sign that little piece of paper and we can go back to the way things were before. Joint custody and all of that, although we might want to have supervised visitation for a while, so that my client doesn't have any more moments of panic like she did last month-"

Derek threw the paper in the lawyer's face and said something rather rude.

"Derek," Casey said quietly.

"I think that is Mr. Venturi's way of turning down your rather ridiculous offer," Derek's lawyer, Marina Delacruiz, replied. "Mr. Venturi is acting in the best interest of his son, and, since it is apparent that your client cannot handle this discussion is a mature manner-" Marina raised her voice to be heard over Sally's sputtering, "I think we should leave this to the judge. Why don't we just adjourn to the courtroom?"

"By turning down this deal, you know we'll move for full custody now," MacQuire returned. "We can be sure that your client never sees Michael again."

"And that's in his best interest, hm? Save your grandstanding for the judge, MacQuire," was Marina's only response.

After that heated exchange, Sally and her lawyer walked over to her parents before entering the courtroom. Marina, Derek and Casey met his father and Nora before they walked in themselves. Their siblings couldn't make it that day, which Derek was actually glad about. While he knew that all of them, even Ed, were in his corner on this, he really didn't want them to see the mess this was going to be.

As they walked into the courtroom, he looked at Casey. She was still clutching is arm, whether to serve as support or to keep him out of trouble, Derek wasn't sure. "Don't worry, Case," he assured her (and himself) as they walked into the courtroom. "We'll win. I want Michael safe, and I always get what I want."

"It's not that," Casey said quietly. "I'm just a little worried about Michael."

"Casey, you know he'll be safer with us."

"I know that, but I'm not sure any of this will be easier on him. The poor thing has been so quiet. And you can't continue to feed him junk food for every 'icky emotional situation'," Casey raised an eyebrow on the last piece.

"Why? It didn't hurt me growing up."

"First, that's debatable," Casey smiled at him. "Second, I'm around. Like my mother, and I'm sure your mother before her, I'll make sure that the younger generation actually eats his vegetables and has a balance diet."

Derek laughed, but he hugged Casey and held her for a few extra moments. Although he never said thank you, he knew Casey understood.

That was the only light-hearted moment for a while. While Derek was trying to project some confidence, he was scared. He knew from previous experience that Sally on a war-path was dangerous. And this hearing was every bit as awful as he thought it would be. Both of them were accusing the other of being unfit. Derek thought he had a point with Sally's drinking habit and that party that he'd saved Michael from – who knew how many others there had been. Sally, as a counter, tried to first imply that his marriage with Casey was incest. All that argument did was majorly piss off Derek – the judge threw that objection out, as Casey was not blood related to Derek and had never been adopted by Derek's father. Sally accused Derek of kidnapping. He returned with child endangerment. It was ugly.

Finally, the judge called a recess so that he could go back and talk to Michael to get his opinion on the whole thing. After the judge left the courtroom, Derek sank down in the chair. He was more nervous about this outcome that he would care to admit. He must have looked green, because Casey rubbed his shoulders and say, "Are you okay? Need to make a restroom run?"

Derek shook his head. "I'm fine. Everything is fine. The judge will see it our way. Everything will be fine."

At this point, his mother entered the courtroom. He and Sally both looked up as Abby made her way to the front.

"How is Michael?" Derek and Sally actually asked in unison.

"He's okay," Abby assured both parents. "He's been quiet this morning. He's a little clingy, too. But okay."

"My little boy," Sally said. Then she turned on Derek, "See, this can't be good for him. Call this off!"

"No," Derek countered. "He's quiet at the moment, but he's safe. I'm trying to make sure he stays that way."

"I'm not unsafe. I love my son and you know it, Venturi!" Sally returned fire.

"Sally," Casey began tentatively, "we know you love Michael. It is just that he might be best with us for a while-"

"If you want a child that badly, Cassandra, have one of your own. Stop stealing stuff from me!"

"What?!" Casey blinked, but Derek hadn't let her say anything more.

"That wasn't called for, Sally. This is not about Casey. This has never been about Casey, so call off your goddamn attack dogs."

"Not about Casey?! Seriously? You seriously believe that. Everything has been about Casey. From freaking day one. She was even mentioned in our original divorce case, in case you happened to forgotten."

Derek growled as Casey turned to him in surprise. He purposely never told Casey that Sally had originally filed for divorce claiming adultery on his part with Casey. Given that she couldn't prove that claim, she ended up filing with a different accusation of fault. Not that made the divorce move any more smoothly.

Derek and Sally probably would have continued their shouting match if his mother and Sally's mother, Rose, hadn't intervened. It seems that both women, regardless of whose "side" they might be on, realized that the screaming match wasn't doing her respective child any good. Abby led Derek back over to his side of the courtroom, patting his back a few times. Nora pulled him into a hug when he got near enough. His father said something to his mother, but Derek wasn't paying much attention. In fact, Derek didn't pay much attention to anything until the judge returned from talking to Michael.

When the judge returned, he announced that he had come to a decision. As the judge, Derek thought his name was Lenox, started to speak Derek felt his stomach dropped and his hands shake. Casey took his right hand and held it throughout the entire degree.

"Mr. Venturi. Mrs. Venturi. We are here to make a decision about who will have primary custody of one James Michael Venturi. Custody cases are always difficult and it difficult watching families fall apart.

"That being said, Mr. Venturi, Mrs. Venturi, you are both to be commended. Michael Venturi is a great little boy. Polite. Smart. Respectful. Both of you, up to this point, have done a good job in raising him. He loves both of you very much, and clearly – regardless of how you feel about each other – you both love him.

"Mrs. Sally Venturi, Michael has been living primarily with you for the last three years. Your son described that time as 'fun'. I am, however, concerned about some of your behaviors that I have seen documented in this courtroom. I have no doubt that you love your son, but I recommend, whatever the result of today, that you seek some professional help to assist you to approaching life on a more even keel.

"Mr. Derek Venturi, Michael has been living with you and your current wife, Mrs. Cassandra McDonald Venturi, for about a month. Your son defined it as 'different'. It was probably more structure than he was used to. While you have done well for a month, I am concerned that you haven't had him under your care for longer periods of time up to this point. While having Mrs. Cassandra Venturi's assistance with your son is a good thing, there can be problems for children from a first marriage in the home of a second marriage. I hope you and your wife would continue to take good care of Michael, even and especially if the two of you have children of your own in the future.

"As I reviewed this case, a few things stood out to me. First, both of you clearly love Michael. Second, Michael clearly loves the both of you. There are no signs of abuse or criminal neglect on the part of either parent – as of yet. All things being equal I would keep the arrangement as it currently is-"

Derek felt his stomach fall further. Casey tightened her hand on his. He looked back has his parents; he couldn't bear to look at Sally at the moment. His father and Nora held onto each other, looking at him with support and sadness in their eyes.

But the judge wasn't finished.

"However," Judge Lenox continued, "All things are not equal in this case. First, Mr. Venturi would be bringing Michael into a stable, two parent home. While adjusting to step-parents can be difficult, based on the testimony presented today and her very presence in the courtroom, Cassandra McDonald Venturi seems to love and care about Michael Venturi very much. Second, I continue to have some concerns about the current mental capabilities of Mrs. Sally Venturi. In the words of her own son, 'most days it's just normal…but everyone has bad days'. It's those bad days happening, especially if they are anything like the alleged party that Mr. Venturi described, that has me concerned.

"Because of this, I'm granting Mr. Derek Venturi full custody of one James Michael Venturi. Mrs. Sally Venturi will be granted visitation, starting with supervised visitation until such time as she undergoes an evaluation by a professional. Afterward, she will be granted weekend visitation and two weeks in the summer." At that, the judge ended his judgment and adjourned the court.

"Holy shit," Derek whispered as he laid his head on the desk. "We got Mike. Mike's going to be okay."

He heard someone in tears; he assumed Sally because there seemed to be some screaming with it. He heard Nora's soft, "Oh, thank God." He felt Casey kiss his head and give him a hug. "Come on, Daddy," she whispered quietly. "Let's walk out of this room and go get your son."

Derek didn't move right away; he was blinking away a few tears. He had been scared as hell, especially in those last few moments, thinking he was going to have to hand Michael back to Sally, to see him hurt or worse the next time Derek caught the tail end of one of those parties. Eventually, he got to his feat. He profusely thanked Marina, who only smiled and said, "Michael's going to the right place and my bill will be in the mail. My work here is done."

He hugged both Nora and his father. As George, Nora and Casey walked out of the courtroom with him, Casey squeezed his hand, causing him to look over at her.

"Why so pensive?" He asked. "We won, Space Case."

"Pensive?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I am university educated after all. Besides, 'pensive' sounded better than, 'what's with the strange look on your mug?'"

"De-rek," she smiled slightly and hit is arm. Her smile fell away soon enough. "But I'm serious. I think we need to be careful with Michael for awhile."

The way she shared her concern made Derek pause. "Go on," he said after a moment.

"I mean, think for a second. When your parents divorced, weren't you a little afraid that you wouldn't see your mother again? Wasn't Marti afraid that she wouldn't see Abby again? Regardless of this whole mess, your Mikey loves his mother. I think the idea of not seeing her ever again terrifies him. I know you want to protect him, Derek, but how you handle this is part of protecting him too."

He didn't want to acknowledge that Casey might be right. In fact, he never said he agreed with this idea in any way out loud. But he didn't argue back. He figured Casey knew what that meant.

His mother had been allowed go back to Michael after the judge was finished with his questions. So, it was his mother who brought the little boy into the hallway. He did look a little clingy, like his mother said. Derek was just so relieved that Mike was going to be with him, where Derek could protect him, that he didn't worry so much about quietness around the normally active boy.

Derek squeezed Casey's hand and then called over to his son and they began to walk to him. "Mike-" was all he was able to get out before Sally started shouting.

"Mikey, why? You did this! You had to. I had it together."

Sally shout stopped Derek in his tracks for two reasons. First, Mikey was Casey's nickname for Michael. She came up with it. She used it first. Sally didn't have anyone's permission to start using it all over the place. She had never used it before. Second, the shout seemed to make Michael even more nervous. "Mom?" the poor boy asked quietly.

"Sally…don't do this here," Casey begged after she looked at Michael pale.

"Did I ask you? He isn't yours. You do know that, right?" Sally sneered. Obviously, the fight wasn't over for her. But Derek was not going to allow it to happen in front of Mike.

"What's so great about living with your father anyway? I took care of you. I love you, Mikey!" was Sally's response to Derek's warning. It was almost like she hadn't even acknowledged that Derek had spoken.

At this point, Mike looked very wary and confused. "What-?" the boy began to ask his grandmother, but Derek decided that it was time he went over to talk to Mike one on one. On his level. He remembered Marti saying one time that their parent's divorce had seemed over her head, literally, at the time. People rarely bent down to her level and explained things.

Kneeling next to his son, Derek began, 'Hey Buddy. You hangin' in there?" At Mike's nod, Derek continued (after taking a deep breath), "Bud, you're going to stay with me and Casey for now on. Okay?"

Mike's eyes widened. At that moment the boy looked fragile…and so like his Aunt Marti had when Abby had told them that she and George were getting divorced. He even said the same thing Marti had said then, "But Mom-"

"You'll still get to see her. Maybe not as often as you did last year, but she'll still visit." Derek found himself channeling a decades old version of his father. In fact, that is exactly what his father had told Marti.

"You bastard! Don't make it sound like I had a choice," Sally shouted. That had NOT been what Abby had said to Marti after George had made that statement all those years ago. In fact, Sally continued to rant "It's not fair! It's not fucking fair! What do I get out of all of this? So, I only got to keep my son until 'wifey' decided she wanted a family?! What Derek Venturi wants, Derek Venturi gets, it seems! Regardless of what it does to anyone else. Well, Mikey, you better hope that Derek and his 'wifey' want you for the long hall. Or your life is going to suck."

"Sally!" Derek objected as he shot to his feet and turned a full glare on Sally. He couldn't believe she would even say that to his son. To their son. The boy was almost shaking as it was!

Derek had started moving in Sally's direction now, her full-on sobbing not lessening his anger at all. Casey once again grabbed his arm to stop him. That stopped Derek long enough for Sally's parents to lead the still distraught Sally away. It was also long enough for Derek to hear is own mother say quietly, "I can't believe she said that. I can't believe she said that in front of poor Mike. Even if that is how she felt, Michael is her child! You give up stuff to have the best for your children. What Michael-" his mother's voice caught.

That was enough to have Derek spin around to check on his son. Mike was shaking a little, but Nora had wrapped him in a hug. Squeezing him a little, she started to hum something he'd heard Casey sing to Marti years ago. It seemed to calm Mike down a little, but the poor boy was still a little out of it. His father handed Mike a candy bar and the two older Venturis began to lead the boy to the car.

Casey hugged Derek as the two of them began to follow their parents and a lost little boy to the parking lot. "It will be okay, Derek. We'll make it okay," Casey vowed.

And he knew it would be alright. He'd know in high school that when he and Casey worked together, amazing things happened. Michael would be alright. Team McDonald-Venturi would make sure of it.

- to be continued -


	6. Chapter 5: Better Blind

_**Here is the next chapter of Unblended. As, always, I recommend that if you can listen to Duran Duran's "Come Undone" while you are reading this chapter, do so. This also parallels a chapter in "It Was All About Love For" so much of this will seem familiar, but different, given that this is Derek's story.**_

_**Thank you for reading and your support of this huge project. It means a lot to me. I appreciate comments and reviews. And, yes, this chapter is a little longer to make up for the fact that it wasn't posted on Monday.**_

**Unblended: A Beautiful Mess**

By: December

**Chapter 5 – Better Blind **

"_We'll try to stay blind to the hope and fear outside."_

_- Duran Duran, "Come Undone"_

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_12:30pm_

"I take it that Team McDonald-Venturi fumbled the ball a bit?" Keith had no idea if throwing in the random sports analogy made the question sting more or less.

"Did I mention I hate football?" was Derek's reply. So the sports analogy must have stung more.

"You may have mentioned it. I have no great love for football or baseball either, to tell the truth. We tend to be a basketball, figure skating, ice hockey, dodgeball tourney kind of house." Keith shrugged. "Neither Amanda or I were into watching football on TV. Amanda even hates it live."

"A 'dodgeball tourney' kind of house?"

"There are dodgeball tournaments. My wife got hooked watching them several years and now they are must see TV in the house."

"Your wife watches dodgeball tournaments?"

"And ice hockey – but only for the fights, she claims. She likes sports violence, for some reason." Keith laughed. "But, back to your story. What happened after the custody hearing? That was a classic 'end of the movie too early' moment."

"End of the movie too early moment?"

Keith shook his head. The things the women in his life got him to say out loud. "That's an Imani-ism. If the hearing was the end of the movie, it would have been the climax right before happy ending on the horizon. When something like this happens in the last fifteen minutes of a movie, a great ending is coming up. When this happens within the first twenty minutes of a movie, however, it is going to be a movie full of screw-ups and misunderstandings. And both of the Lawrence women will be shouting at the screen and throwing stuff. Imani has begged me not to make one of those."

"End of the movie too early, huh? That could fit this story. So we shouldn't do it and I should stop talking now," Derek grabbed an out Keith didn't even realized he'd held out.

"Oh no. I want to hear the whole story. And, to my family, the only thing worse that an 'end of the movie too early' story is an 'unresolved cliff-hanger', which is what this would be if you stop the story there."

"Fine."

"So…were there immediate problems after the hearing?" Keith asked.

"Oddly enough, no. Michael was quiet for a little while, but I dragged him to the last Maple Leafs game of the season. There was a moment where we all piled on the ice – me, my son, and the champion Leafs. I had never seen Michael smile so big before. It was wonderful. And, after we got off the ice, he rushed up to Casey, who had come with us, and gave her a huge hug. Which prompted Casey to do that female cry/smile thing."

"Sounds like a Hallmark moment."

"Yeah, like a Hallmark card and movie all thrown into one. It was incredibly cheesy," Derek shrugged. It might have seemed dismissive to the unobservant, but Keith was always more visual that many around him. He saw that the moment that Derek shared meant a lot to him. It was a very happy memory, apparently.

"So you saw the good with your own eyes, then?"

"And the bad. I can still see the moment where I felt like I'd built a family and the moment where first crack in the picture appeared."

"The first crack?"

"It came at a moment where I wasn't expecting it. Casey came home one day in March bringing good news from the doctor. After she announced that news to Michael – well, we never saw a smile as big as the one on hockey day ever again."

Keith blinked a little. He wasn't expecting that medical news would be at the heart of this story. "Was Casey sick?"

"No. She wasn't sick – regardless of what the morning sickness made us think."

"She was pregnant?"

"With Emily, yeah." Derek shrugged and looked away, almost as if he didn't want to remember the next part. "Michael – Michael didn't take that too well."

**March 22, 2026**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_3pm_

He was going stir crazy. He didn't like waiting. He didn't like worrying. And he didn't like the pacing he just noticed he was doing.

He was wishing that Casey had let him go with her.

For the past month, Casey hadn't been feeling well. She was having problems keeping all of her meals down. She seemed to be dragging at the end of the day more often than she had in the past. She complained of being tired more. In the past week, she'd had a few headaches that she couldn't figure out where they were coming from. And while she suddenly didn't seem to want tofu anymore (which Derek secretly celebrated), she was apparently sneaking his Funyons. Only when she wasn't feeling nauseous.

This behavior had worried both of the males in the house. Mike had become quiet again and had taken to watching Casey very carefully. He also apologized a little more often, making Derek wonder if Mike somehow thought Casey's illness was his fault. Mike had been sick about a week before Casey's strange behavior started. A week after Casey strange behavior started, Mike even asked Derek if he'd gotten Casey sick. That had been Derek's first guess as well, but Casey never had a fever like Mike had. And the tiredness and nausea went on for more than a few days. Casey, for her part, just kept insisting that it was just because of how hard she was working on her next book and that she was fine.

Derek finally put his foot down and insisted that Casey go to a doctor. Derek figured that, even without a fever, all of those symptoms that Casey had been showing for weeks could be signs of something serious. And, yes, he might have spent some time on WebMD and freaked himself out, but he just wanted to be sure Casey was okay.

Casey had also put her foot down about going alone. "I'm not going to have you scream at my doctor to 'fix me' when I'm probably just stressed and need to take it easy."

"Case, have I ever screamed at a medical professional to 'fix' you?"

"Yes!" Casey had retaliated, reminding him, "during the food poisoning incident on our honeymoon!"

"That does not count," Derek had insisted. "He was a total hack and you were green and throwing up. He was supposed to do something about it. That was his job!"

Casey didn't change her mind about Derek coming, even though Derek pointed out that he hadn't asked medical professionals to fix her nearly as often as he thought he should have. That probably hadn't really helped his case, if her face at his statement was any indication. That did, however, mean that Derek was stuck in the house, worried about Casey. And he was annoyed that he was stuck in the house worried about Casey.

This time, he didn't have a "surprise party" to escape to while he pulled himself together. This lack of distraction was not good for the floors in the house.

Luckily, at that point, the door opened. "Derek?" he could hear Casey call as she came through the door.

Derek met her in the front hall. Later he would be amazed at how quickly he had made it from one end of the house to the other. At that moment, however, there was only one thing on his mind, "What did the doctor say?"

"You aren't going to say hello first?" Casey smiled at him.

"Fine. Hi. Now, what did the doctor say?"

"Let's go sit down," Casey said as she closed the door.

The fact that she didn't lead off with some version of "Told you I was fine, Derek," made him nervous. Wrapping an arm around her, he lead her slowly to the living room, ignoring her "I can walk, you know. There was never anything wrong with my legs."

"Are you alright? Is there anything I can do? What did the doctor say?"

"Derek," Casey squeezed his hand. "Take a breath. I'm fine."

Derek glared at her. "You could have just lead off with that."

"It's not quite that simple," his wife replied as she sat down.

That made Derek nervous again. And confused. "Wait…but you just said…did you mean…? Casey, what did the doctor say? What's wrong with you?"

Casey smiled at him and patted his arm. "Nothing's wrong with me," she insisted. Then she sighed, "I just hate that I'm going to have to go to you for advice for the next few months. You have a big enough head as it is."

Derek felt like he had completely lost the trail of the conversation. "Wait, what?"

Casey shrugged. "I mean, you're the one that's actually the parent of the two of us."

"Case," Derek hugged her and then he took her hands. "You know that's not true. You are just as much Mike's mom as I am his dad. You worry about him, care about him, love him, feed him. Sure, you weren't there in person from day one, but you are here now. And the boy loves you."

Casey smiled and squeezed Derek's hands. "Thank you. But that wasn't what I was worried about. I somehow have managed to get through helping to raise a ten year old, mainly by reading a lot of parenting magazines-"

"And then ignoring all the advice in those pieces of crap."

'De-rek!" Casey objected, but she didn't let her disagreement with him derail her point for long. "What I'm saying is, I've never gone through the pregnancy part of parenthood-"

"Well, duh, Casey-"

"Until now."

Derek froze as the last two words worked their way into his head. Then he had to ask for clarification. "Until now? Casey…are you saying your pregnant?"

"Yes," Casey smiled blindly at him. Then her smile dimmed a bit. "How you do – I mean, is that okay?" she asked quietly.

"Okay?" Derek laughed. "Is that okay? It's great!" Derek pulled her into a hug. "We're going to have a baby."

Casey's smile was back at blazing after he released her. "So being a father for the second time is okay with you, I take it?"

"More than okay. Mike and I will love rough-housing with another boy."

"And if it's a girl?" Casey asked with an eyebrow raised.

"When she starts dating, we'll have two guns pointed at any guys who come to the front door instead of one. Much more intimidating that way."

Casey laughed. "When are we telling Michael then?"

"How about as soon as he gets back from Sally's?"

"When he gets back?" Casey sounded a little panicked. "But I won't have time to figure out the best way to share our news or check to see what advice there is on how to do this on the parenting blogs or –"

"And that is a good thing," Derek laughed at Casey's panicked, but still happy face. "Don't worry. You don't need a plan to deliver good news."

"You think Mikey will like this news?"

Derek snorted. "Duh. As older brother, he'll have run of it."

"He's not going to use his little brother as his own personal minion," Casey objected.

"But that stops a quality bonding experience between me and Mike and a bonding experience between Edwin and his future nephew. Do you really want to deprive us of that?"

Casey shoved him and made a face. Derek was sure he was about to fire something back when they were interrupted by the return of their soon to be eldest child.

"I'm back," they heard Mike call after the door opened and shut.

Hearing Mike enter the house, Derek turned to Casey. "No time like the present to share the news," he said quietly. Then he raised his voice, "Mike, we're in the living room. Can you come here for a minute?"

A few seconds later, Mike walked into the room. He first looked Casey over, as had been his habit as of late. Casey was practically glowing with her news so she did look better than she had earlier in the week. Derek was pretty sure he was smiling as well. That seemed to put Mike at ease a little, but he was still standing by the door.

"Have a seat, Mike. We have some news," Derek asked as he tried to keep his smile under control.

Mike sat down quietly and looked at the adults expectantly.

"Um…well…" Casey began, but couldn't seem to finish. Derek was a little surprised that she wasn't just gushing, but, knowing Casey, she was still probably trying to find the perfect way to share the news. And he hadn't even given her time to prepare for this at all. So he should probably let her off the hook.

"Mike," Derek began, realizing that he was still probably smiling out of control, "you're going to have a brother or sister in a few months."

Mike just sat and stared at them. His expression was blank. No verbal response. He didn't jump up to hug Casey or express relief that he'd hadn't given her the flu, like he had thought he had. Maybe Michael didn't understand what Derek had meant. Derek decided to clarify his earlier statement. "Mike, Casey is going to have a baby."

"Isn't that great news?" Casey practically gushed. At least she wasn't squealing like she did when Derek called her to tell her that Mike had been born_._

A rush of emotions flashed across Michael's face, but before Derek could make sense of any of them, his now red-faced son had jumped to this feet and shouted, "No!"

To say Derek was surprised would be a massive understatement. He expected Mike to be happy or confused and happy. Not rude and flustered. Derek looked over at Casey; she looked frozen in shook as well. The smile was still on her face, but it didn't look as natural as it had before.

Maybe they had misunderstood Michael's reaction? Or maybe Michael was reacting to the upcoming change and hadn't really thought things through.

"Mike," Derek began to explain, "Now, I know this will be a bit of a change – and that this may have come as a bit of a shock. But it will be a good change and-"

"No, it won't," Mike interrupted to reply.

Michael's continued negative reaction still didn't compute in Derek's head. He might have even tried to explain again what was going on – he couldn't even say what all was coming out of his mouth at that point – but Mike interrupted him again.

"You get that this is a change? Good then. You've caused a lot of changes in my life. I'm still waiting to see if any of them are actually good. They are all different though – I'll give you that." Mike shouted back.

The tone, the content…it wasn't like Mike and it confused Derek. If Derek were more touchy-feeling, he might have thought to start asking questions. But, being the kind of father he was, he addressed the immediate first. Rude was rude. They could deal with questions after that was addressed. "Michael Venturi! First, you will apologize to Casey and-"

"Apologize for what?!" Mike shouted back. "I didn't do anything. She's the one who changed everything," he accused as he pointed to Casey. A stunned Casey who looked like she was about to cry.

Crap. One battle at a time.

"Michael, go to your room." Derek requested. When his son didn't immediately moved, but stayed where he was, staring at Derek and pointing at Casey, Derek became more forceful. " Now!"

"Fine," his ten year old son yelled at the top of his lungs as he ran from the room. A few seconds later, Derek heard a door slammed.

"What in the hell was that?" Derek muttered to himself. It was hearing a small whimper that reminded him that Casey was in the room. "Case-"

Casey opened her mouth to speak and then shut it. The joy that had been in her face just five minutes ago was completely gone. And Derek wanted to put it back there.

"Look, Princess," Derek proposed as he pulled her into a hug. "Why don't we call the Fam. All of them and tell them the news. Get them all here – well, all except maybe Dennis – he's still at that conference in Vegas, isn't he?"

Casey nodded and Derek took that as a sign to press on, "We'll have everyone over. You know Liz and Nora will love to gush. It'll be fun."

"I guess-"

"And I know," Derek insisted as he whipped out his cell phone, "so start calling."

"But you aren't supposed to really tell people this early-" Casey began in a quiet voice.

"Case. This is the Fam. They are going to find out soon anyway. If you don't want to tell Emily or your psycho manager-"

"There is nothing wrong with Michelle!"

"That's fine. But just call the Fam over, so you can do that squealing girl thing," Derek insisted as he kissed the top of Casey's head. "You know you want to."

That encouragement led to everyone coming over to the house for the "big surprise announcement" at seven. And they did gush. There were squeals and hugs…and more jokes about Venturi fertility than should ever be aired at a gathering. And, even at this early date, name suggestions were flying. Everyone seemed to want the child named after them, except for his mother (who thought Abigail was a dated name) and Marti. Marti wanted Casey to name the baby, if it was a girl, Daphne. That got a surprise giggle out of Casey, which led to laughs from everyone else. Derek hugged his Smarti extra hard for that suggestion, as it had brought Casey's smile back.

As everyone was crowding around Casey, talking and laughing, Derek noticed his mother was sitting on a nearby chair, looking thoughtful. "Mom?" Derek asked, "Is anything wrong?"

Casey, somehow hearing Derek's question over all the talking, excused herself from everyone else. Walking over to stand next to Derek, she echoed Derek's question, "Abby?"

Derek's mother shook her head. "Nothing's wrong," the older woman insisted. But it still appeared to Derek that something was bothering his mother.

It must have seen that way to Casey, because she started to babble. "I know this announcement is a little sudden. And I know you really aren't supposed to say anything until after the first trimester, but I really wanted to share this. And this would be your second grandchild, and-"

Abby smiled. "It's okay, Casey. It's just that…"

"That what?" Derek asked.

"Well," his mother began, "How did Mike react to this?"

`"He…didn't take it well," Casey admittedly quietly. Derek squeezed her hand. Mike's strange reaction clearly still saddened Casey. And it has seemed to come out of left field.

"He'll get used to it, " Derek found himself saying.

"But…I don't think it will be that easy," Abby Venturi countered quietly after a pause. "Won't he feel a little replaced?"

The question surprised Derek. Why in the world would Michael feel replaced? Being the older sibling wasn't being replaced. It was gaining more power.

"But we would never-" Casey began to try to assure his mother

"I'm not saying you would do anything wrong, Casey, not at all," Derek's mother began in a soothing tone,"but....." Here, his mother paused as if trying to put her thoughts into words. Then she shared, "Mike's been through a lot. It will probably make him a little nervous about his place here. You both are doing things to assure that he still feels a part of the family?"

It hurt Derek a little that his mother seemed to think that he and Casey would shut Michael out just because she was pregnant. As it was, Derek wanted to include Mike in everything. Mike was the one who didn't seem to want to join the celebration. But whether Mike was happy and involved or not, he was still Derek's son and he still loved him. "Mom, we aren't going to suddenly _ignore_ him," Derek said aloud.

That didn't seem to lessen the worry in his mother's face. "I realize that, but…"

"He'll get used to it," Derek insisted. It might help after the baby was born and Michael could see the person who would look up to him, the little person he would protect.

"Where is he now?" Abby asked.

"In his room, asleep," Casey admitted in a sad voice. "He was a little upset when we told him earlier."

"Rude more like," Derek muttered. The reaction was still a surprise, in some ways. Michael was rarely rude, especially that rude. Had something happened with his mother to set him off? And wasn't it just wonderful that occurred to Derek _now_ and not during Michael's tantrum earlier?

"Oh," Derek's mother almost whispered. "Well, I trust you two know what you are doing."

While Derek assured the room at large that of course he knew what he was doing, there was a moment where he wasn't so sure.

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_1pm_

Keith winced at the end of the story. "So, that could have gone better."

Derek merely nodded.

"Do you think your mother was right? That maybe Michael was feeling replaced?" Keith ventured to ask a few moments later.

Derek only shrugged. The Canadian film maker didn't seem to want to talk as much after that. He even pushed away what was left of his lunch.

Keith thought maybe he should have stopped there, but now he was curious. So he followed up by asking, "What about your theory, then? Did Michael accept the idea of having a sister later?"

Derek blinked at that question and didn't speak for a few beats. Just as Keith began to think he'd pushed to far, Derek answered quietly. "I don't really know."

That was the last response Keith expected. Honestly, Keith had thought he'd asked a yes/no question. Obviously not. "You don't know?"

"Not really, no. Oh Casey and I acted like Mike had accepted Emily. We never even called Emily his 'half-sister' in the house; we always said 'your sister' or 'your sister, Emily'. And Emily adored her big brother practically from the moment she was born," Derek smiled here. "Michael's name was the first she learned to say after she got down how to call us, her parents. Even before she got his name, she had a special wail that she'd use when she wanted Michael. Casey got really good at identifying that wail after awhile."

"So Emily accepted Michael early on?"

"She tried to attach herself to his hip. If she could have pulled that off, she would have been very pleased with herself."

"But Michael didn't return the affection?" Keith asked.

Derek ran a hand through his hair and hit the table with the fist not in his hair. "Shit. That's the thing. I never could fucking tell. One minute he would do something sweet like walk around the house holding Emily so she would go to sleep; not many eleven years olds would do that. The next minute, he would complain about having to spend time with her. He had a nickname for her, but it wasn't flattering. Casey and I weren't really sure what to make of his hot and cold behavior. And then, when Emily was three…" here Derek closed his eyes and fell silent.

"When Emily was three?" Keith asked after about a minute. "What happened when Emily was three?"

"To this day, I'm not one hundred percent sure. I just remember the fear and confusion. I remember talking to Mike and rushing Emily to hospital – God, I ran enough red lights that Casey would have freaked if she wasn't so worried about our little girl. And…in everything, I wasn't sure what was on purpose and what was an accident. And I'm not sure if how I reacted made things worse or better."

Keith was sure that his confusion was apparent on this face because Derek tried to summarize things for him. "While Casey and I were out celebrating her latest literary success, Michael injured Emily."

"Wait, your son attacked your daughter?" Keith asked in shock.

"No. He didn't attack her. I guess it's better to say that Emily was injured while she was with Michael. When we got home, I acted like a freaked out parent and so we never got the whole story from Michael. In my darker moments, I wondered if Michael had done it on purpose. In my other moments, I know he didn't, but I also know I didn't express that well." Derek sighed. "I get the feeling Michael blamed himself; I don't think he's ever been able to forget that."

"So what happened? I mean, what do you _know_ happened?" Keith asked.

"It was a Friday night. We'd made Michael, who was thirteen at the time, stay home with Emily while we went out. I guess I should have known it was going to be a different night based on our conversation."

**September 6, 2030**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_8:30pm_

"Well, dinner was interesting," Casey began as they got into their car.

"It was interesting because it was quiet," Derek teased his wife as he started the drive home.

"De-rek!" Even after all of these years, Casey was still Casey. "The only reason we didn't talk as much-"

"Was because we were blatantly eavesdropping on the couple at the table next to ours."

"We were not eavesdropping," Casey insisted. "It's just that their conversation was loud-"

"And we were listening to it. Isn't that eavesdropping means, Ms. Keener?"

"It's Mrs. Keener," Casey said as she stuck out her tongue at Derek. "And that might be the denotation of the word, but its connotation implies spying or being sneaking. And we weren't being sneaky."

"We would be such a disappointment to our siblings," Derek agreed.

Casey laughed. "Besides," she said after a minute, "you started it."

"I started it?"

"Derek, just admit that you started listening because they mentioned your upcoming documentary."

And that was true. Derek had been working on a documentary on blending families, it was already generating buzz in the area. It was the couple's mention of the documentary that started Derek listening to the conversation. And he might have motioned to Casey to listen as well. But after the brief mention of his work, the conversation went in a direction they hadn't expected. The couple because to talk about cases of violence between step and half siblings.

"Take my cousin," the male of the couple had said. "She had a daughter from her first marriage. The girl seemed perfectly comfortable with her stepfather and they were happy…up until my cousin ended up pregnant. One night, when her half brother was two, my cousin's daughter was baby-sitter and there was an accident. The boy ended up dying from the injuries he received when he fell down the stairs. It wasn't until years later that my cousin found out her daughter pushed the boy down the stairs. Apparently, she didn't want to share."

The stories had only gotten worse from there. Casey wasn't able to finish her meal. Derek finished his, because it was food and he had long ago learned to eat through a lot of things. But the conversation unnerved him too. Although he was (pretty) sure he knew his children, he couldn't help but think that he had one half-sibling watching another in their home.

"It's still on your mind, too," Casey said quietly as they pulled up to their house.

"I guess," Derek shrugged as he put the car in park. "I know it's silly."

"Exactly," Casey agreed. "We know Mikey. He would never-"

"Right," Derek cut Casey off, not even wanting to air the awful thought. "So let's go see if he was able to get Emily to go to sleep."

Casey smiled. "If he did, it was because he sat in her room with her until she did. That girl would try to stay awake as long as she could if she could be in the same room with her brother."

"It's the Venturi charm."

"If you say so," was that last thing Casey said before they entered the house.

"Mike, we're home!" Derek said as he and Casey walked in the door.

"Is Emily in bed yet?" Casey called to Michael. She started to frown when she didn't get an answer. "Michael?" she asked again as she walked toward the living room, where they had left the two earlier that evening.

He couldn't see what Casey saw at first. In fact, his first clue that something was wrong was that he ran into the back of Casey, who had suddenly stopped. "Case?"

"Oh, my God," Casey gasped. "Emily!" she shouted as she suddenly began to move. It was as Casey rounded the coffee table that Derek saw what had upset her.

Their little girl was on the floor, looking a little dazed, but smiling. She was also bleeding from the head. Michael was on the floor next to her, leaning over her, but not looking much calmer than Casey.

And right at that moment, Derek got that unsettled feeling in his stomach. He was too old to need to vomit at these moments, but the nausea was definitely there. It was a good thing his stomach was churning, because he couldn't move his feet right away.

By this point, Casey had reached Emil and she lifted their youngest into her arms.

"Hi, Mommy," Emily smiled. Casey paled and rushed Emily to the kitchen.

A freaked out Casey, a bleeding and dazed Emily, and a frozen Michael. Every male instinct in Derek went into _"fix it! Fix it now!"_ mode. The thing was, he needed information. He blamed his fear for how his first question must have sounded to Michael. "How in the hell did this happen?" As Michael was there with Emily, he had to know what happened.

"I don't…I – I don't know," Mike stuttered out, looking back at his father with wide eyes.

That was not what Derek wanted to hear. "You don't KNOW?! You weresupposed to be watching her!" It was Michael's job to protect Emily when Derek wasn't there. Michael knew that. He must know that. Emily was his sister.

"I was! Kinda. She was just over there and then she was over here bleeding and…" Michael might have continued to talk, but Derek didn't hear him as he saw the corner cover on the floor near where Michael was.

Before Emily was born, Casey had enlisted the entire family, their friends, and random strangers (okay, maybe not strangers) in to help baby-proof the house. As Emily had gotten older, baby-proofing had turned to child-proofing. And part of that "proofing" was covering up every sharp edge that Casey could think of. And everyone knew that all sharp edges had to be covered around Emily. "She moves so fast," Casey had gasped one day. "If we just leave dangerous stuff out, she'll get hurt." So Michael would know that all of the corner covers should be on the table with Emily in the room.

The man's story came back to Derek. To be honest, it hadn't left him. Picking up the cover, he turned to look at his son, _"_And you have no idea why the corner of the table nearest to you doesn't have this on it?" Derek wasn't sure what he was accusing his son of, if he was accusing him of anything. He just knew that he felt fear, a different kind of fear than he felt for Emily. And that pissed him off.

"No!" Michael shouted, although he was still very pale. Was Michael afraid? If he was afraid, why was he afraid? Was it because Emily was hurt? Or was he afraid for another, more sinister reason?

Derek took a deep breath. He needed answers. He needed his stomach to stop churning. Hell, he wasn't sure what all the fuck he needed. But he'd start with answers, "I'm asking this one more time, Mike. What happened? What did you do?"

"Do?! I – I – don't…I mean…nothing happened!" Michael could barely get the words out.

"Emily is bleeding, Michael," Derek said. This was a big deal. And his fears aside, Derek realized he needed to enlist his son's help to figure out what happened. Accident or planned, Michael was the only other person in the house with Emily. He's the only person who knew anything. Maybe if he understood that this was important?

Before Derek could say anything else, Casey came rushing back from the kitchen, Emily still in her arms, with a towel pressed to Emily's head. Derek was sure he paled. Seeing two of the most important women in his life in distress and not being able to immediately stop it was hell.

"Derek, we need to go to the hospital," Casey said, surprisingly calmly, as she continued toward the door. Derek didn't really think as he put down the table corner and moved his keys from his left to right hand. Later he would be glad that neither he nor Casey had shed their coats on entering the house.

Derek has followed Casey and Emily into the front hall before he realized that Michael was finally able to move and was following him. At that moment, Derek realized that he couldn't handle freaked out wife, bleeding baby, and frozen eldest all at once. So, Derek turned to face Michael. Repeating 'one crisis at a time' in his head, he said aloud, "Michael, you..." _Crap_. " Just – just stay there. We'll talk after we make sure Emily is okay. Stay here," Derek said as he returned to following Casey out the door. Mike would be fine in the house until after Derek put out the first fire.

Getting everyone into the car was a blur. Getting to the hospital was a blur, too. Derek knew he ran a few lights. No telling how many other traffic laws he broke making a twenty-five minute drive take eight minutes. Casey was so worried about Emily, she didn't even notice how Derek was driving, which was telling.

But, while everything sped up getting to the hospital, it slowed down once they got there. It took forever for someone to see Emily. It took forever for them to stitch her up; at that point, Emily decided to cry her heart out. And then there was the moment with all of the uncomfortable questions to be sure Emily's injury wasn't the result of child abuse. It was exhausting.

Casey and Derek didn't talk on the way home. Emily was in the back, asleep, so she didn't speak either. When they got home, Derek was the one who got Emily out the car and carried the sleeping girl to bed. Since Casey was exhausted, he didn't want her to have to carry Emily in as well. They both worked to settle the tired little girl into bed, and they both kissed her good night.

After that, because they were so tired themselves, they went to their own room and got ready for bed. Derek was sitting on his side, about to turn out the lamp on his side of the room, when Casey looked at him. She opened her mouth to speak…but started to silently cry instead.

"Princess," Derek winced a little, but pulled her into his arms. "It's okay. Everything's okay. Our children are fine. Emily is fine. Michael-"

"Oh, my God! Michael!" Casey pushed away from Derek and wiped her face. Then she moved as if she were going to get out of bed.

"Whoa, Space Case. Where are you going?"

"To talk to Michael. The poor boy must be so worried. I mean, we just rushed out with Emily and didn't tell him where we were going and-"

"Casey," began as he pulled Casey back into his arms. "First off, I'm sure the boy is asleep by now. And second, if he is worried, you going in to wake him up with red eyes and shaking hands is not going to calm him down."

"But Derek-"

"We can talk with him in the morning. I think we all need to just get a good night sleep, so we can face the day more level-headed. Okay?"

"Okay," Casey conceded, returning Derek's hug before they both tried to sleep.

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia_

_United States of America_

_1:20pm_

"So you didn't say anything to Michael that night?" Keith asked. "Was that wise?"

Derek took a deep breath. "Looking back on it, probably not. I'm not sure a crying Casey talking to him that night would have been any better, but the next morning…the boy just looked wrecked. Casey looked up to smile at him that morning, like always, but the smile fell off of her face when she saw how pale he was. I tried to think of something to say, but-"

"But?"

"I'd had all night to reflect on what I'd asked Michael before we left. I'm not sure how he took my questions. And I'm not sure what I could say that wouldn't make things worse. So, the only thing I was able to say was that the bus was there."

"Was there anything normal about the breakfast for Michael?"

"Emily," Derek chuckled here. "I think the girl would have to have been very sick not to smile at her brother. She smiled at him and said hi, like she always did. Admittedly, with the big bandage on her head, she didn't quite look the same. And, when Mike looked at her that morning, and the guilt and nervousness that flooded his face. Well, I knew. I knew, deep down, that the night before was an accident. Mike hadn't meant Emily harm at all."

"Did you ever tell him that?"

Derek looked at Keith as if he were crazy. "No, I never told Michael that, because to tell him that I knew he hadn't hurt Emily on purpose would involve saying that – even for a split second – I thought he was capable of it."

Keith nodded. He wasn't sure he agreed with Derek's reasoning, but he could see the Canadian's point.

"And that's another reason that I don't think this should be a movie. Every incident looks like something I did wrong. I'm not sure I could even direct something like this and not throw up."

"So, balance the story," Keith countered, surprised at how much he sounded like his wife when she would talk about the conversations she had with students. "Tell me a situation where you got it right, when you had a moment of the family you wanted. I'm sure you have a few."

Derek was silent for a minute. Then he smiled. "There was one moment, about two years after Emily's accidental run-in with the coffee table." He laughed. "If I had known what a family portrait would do for us, I would have caved to Casey's requests a lot sooner than I did. Of course, it would have been that we also would have a ton more pictures in our living room and bedroom, but that would have been okay."

"A family portrait is a happy moment?" Keith asked. "I still dread them. I mean, I love my family. But with the hair appointments and the shopping trips for the picture and the arguments about studio, background, poses-"

"Well, this family portrait had a little of that too. But it was all of us together."

Keith leaned back in his chair. "Well, this is one story I've got to hear. Whose idea was the picture?"

"That day, it was mine," Derek admitted. "It was just a splash of inspiration that hit me over breakfast."

- to be continued -


	7. Chapter 6: Love, As I Understand It

_**Here is the next chapter of Unblended. It's a happy chapter, which should shake things up just a little bit. As always, I suggest if you have the Alanis Morissette song handy, that you listen to it while you read. (It's like every chapter is a songfic! Okay, not really, but yeah.)**_

_**I love comments and reviews, and really want people's reaction to this happy moment. This moment is important because it explains a small thing (but important…in my head at least) that happened in "It Was All About Love For" that James didn't understand. Feel free to guess what I mean. (And, no, gure, you can't guess because I told you.) The answer shows up in chapter 10.**_

_**Thanks for reading.**_

**Unblended: A Beautiful Mess**

By: December

**Chapter 6 - Love, as I Understand It**

"_This is the only kind of love, as I understand it, that there really is."_

_- Alanis Morissette, "You Owe Me Nothing In Return"_

**November 22, 2031**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_9am_

It was a normal Saturday morning, until Derek had the inspiration. As a director, Derek had had inspirations before. He had even had his work labeled inspirational; he doesn't remember which award granting body laid that pressure-inducing label on his work, but one of them did. Yet, for all the press and others threw around the word "inspiration" in relation to Derek, they didn't have to live with him when he was inspired. One of two things happened when Derek was inspired, trouble or a masterpiece. The problem was, there was no way of know which result a Derek-inspiration would bring until you were in the middle of it. Most of those close to Derek had just learned ways of coping with the ride.

This inspiration started over breakfast. Like always, the entire family was together for the meal. It was the first Saturday in months that Derek wasn't working on a new project. And he knew that Casey had just sent her latest book draft to her editor, so there was nothing to for her to do at the moment but wait for feedback. So, it was really a perfect time for such an inspiration.

Putting down his fork, Derek began to set up his idea. "It is a beautiful day, today. Isn't it?"

Emily quickly agreed. Mike shrugged and focused on his omelet. Casey said, "If it's crazy, I'm not doing it."

"No really. It's a beautiful day and none of us are busy. No plans to shoot footage or write a chapter or meet up for a play date-"

"I have plans," Mike mumbled.

"Well, cancel them. Because we are going to the mall to have a family portrait done."

That causes a variety of reactions around the table. Emily's eyes had started to glow at the word "mall". Even as a five year old, shopping seemed to be a wonderful thing. "We're going to the mall? Really?"

"Yes, we are," Derek had to laugh as his daughter bounced up and down. He laughed even harder when he noticed that Casey was trying hard not to bounce up and down herself. "A family portrait? Really? I've been asking for one for awhile."

"I know."

"And you always had some reason why you couldn't do it."

"Well, it was about time for us to visit Jackson's studio. He's a friend and we probably should have done this sooner."

"Wait," Casey said as she looked at him, "Did you lose a bet and part of the deal was you had to give Colin Jackson some business?"

"Casey, Casey. What you think of me."

"I know you; that's the problem," his wife shook her head. "But, I'm getting what I want, so I'm not going ask any more about it." As Derek raised his eyebrow, she honestly added "At least, not right now."

"Okay, are you sure I have to go?" Mike asked.

"Family portrait. Whole family. Cancel your plans," Derek leveled a look at his son, insisting on no arguments.

"Okay, fine," Mike related as he took his plate and his sister's to the sink, after scraping them into the trash.

"So everyone should go get ready and wear something nice. We want to be able to display this somewhere."

"Oh! Can Mikey help me pick out what to wear?" Emily asked as she slid off of her stool and walked toward her brother.

"_May_ Mikey help me pick out what to wear," Casey corrected unconsciously.

"Wait, what-" Mike began but Emily had already latched onto him.

"Please, Mikey? I want you to pick out my dress."

"Um-" Mike looked like a deer in headlights.

"I think it would be great if you helped her find something," Casey said.

"Don't even try to fight the good fight on this one, son. You'll lose," Derek smiled. "Just go help your sister and cancel you plans."

"Yay!" Emily cheered as she began to drag Mike to the steps.

As Casey quickly cleared the table, Derek followed his children as they made progress to Emily's room, noticing that Mike had grabbed the portable phone and dialed a number. "Hey, Harry," Derek heard his son say after a few moments, "Sorry for the short notice but I have to bail on you, today….Yeah, I'm being dragged to this family thing…nothing like that. Just the mall-"

By this point, Emily had gotten Mike to the stairs. "Come on, Mikey."

"Okay, okay, Terror. In a minute," Mike agreed before returning his attention to the phone.

Terror. Derek and Casey went back and forth over how to take Mike's nickname for his sister. Casey was initially horrified. Then, Derek pointed out that Mike was his son and reminded Casey of all the wonderful nicknames he had for her: princess, keener, Kultzilla, Space Case, Head Case, NutCase, Spazzy, Prudy McPrudish. By the time he'd gotten to some of things he'd leveled at her in college, she said she saw his point and tried to stop worrying that Mike called Emily "Terror" more than he called her by name.

Mike had returned to talking on the phone as he followed Emily up the stairs. By this point, Casey had joined Derek and the two of them began to climb the stairs after the children, not speaking so that they could hear all of Mike's conversation with one of his friends, whom they had never met.

"Yeah, I'm supposed to help the terror get ready….Her mother thought it was a good idea…What's that supposed to mean? Look Harry, stop laughing. I just can't get out today. Tomorrow?...Cool. Uh-huh. Absolutely." Mike hung up the phone just in time to be pulled into Emily's room. Derek and Casey came up behind him to watch as Emily proceeded to open her closet and pull out three things.

"I'm not going to have to watch a fashion show, am I?" Mike complained.

Casey just laughed as she took the phone out of Mike's hand and set in on the hall table. Derek just patted his son on the back. "There are worse things," Derek laughed.

"Please tell me you're joking," Mike responded.

"Mikey!" Emily stomped her foot so that everyone could turn to look at her. "Which one?"

Emily had laid three dresses on her bed. It was moments like this when the five year old channeled Casey so well that there was no way Casey could deny her daughter – even if Emily hadn't had her eyes. The little girl actually held each option up against her front to help her older brother decide. It was hilarious. The only reason Derek wasn't laughing out loud was because he wasn't sure how Emily (or Casey) would take his laughter.

"What. Is. That?" Mike asked as he pointed to the silvery-blue monstrosity that was among the choices Emily held up.

"Uncle Ed gave it to me," Emily explained.

"I'm going to have a talk with Uncle Ed," Derek shared.

"Maybe not that one," Casey tried to add her input diplomatically.

Mike had shuddered a little at the really frilly pink swishy thing that was Emily's second choice. Derek had to agree it was very girly, but as it made Emily look about four, Derek was perfectly happy with that option. He was not in a hurry for Emily to grow up. He wasn't in a hurry for Mike to grow up any more.

Mike looked at the last option. "That yellow would compete with the sun," was what his son said about the modest and age appropriate light yellow and white dress.

"So this one? Yay!" Emily smiled as she laid that dress carefully back on the bed and attempted to re-hang up the other dresses.

That entire interaction caused Derek to shoot a look at Casey. Based on the look on her face, she didn't seem to believe that they had just seen what they had seen either. For years, and even sometimes in recent memory, when Casey would ask him an opinion about which outfit to wear to something, he would insult his favorite. Casey would know that and would select the outfit he insulted the most. They said children modeled the behavior they saw in their house, but seeing that modeled by their children was not something Derek expected.

"Well, it looks like a decision has been made as least," Casey shrugged and she slipped by Mike into Emily's room to help her return the rejected dresses to her closet.

"Mommy, will you help me look all pretty like you?" Emily asked.

"Sure, sweetpea. Let's go get you ready," Casey smiled.

Derek turned to Mike. "Go grab something nice to wear for this thing."

"Fine," Mike sighed as he turned to his room.

"And not those awful jeans and that strange T-shirt you wear all the time. Wear some khakis at least. I know you have a clean pair; I just did laundry," Casey observed as she led Emily to the bathroom.

"Casey-" Mike started to whine, before Derek cut him off.

"Not a battle worth fighting, son. Trust me. Fuss too much and she'll choose clothes for you."

"Don't think I won't!" Casey agreed.

"Yeah, so this is how I planned to spend my Saturday," Mike groaned as he moved to his room.

All in all, they got ready in decent time. And they actually matched a little. Casey wore pastel yellow and white to coordinate with Emily. Both Venturi males, without discussion, emerged in khakis and a polo. Mike's was white. Derek's was pale yellow. The four piled into the car and went to the mall.

Emily loved the mall as much as her mother. Her eyes would light up as they passed toy stores and candy shops. To the point where Derek promised, "After the pictures, we'll get ice cream."

"Yay!" Emily smiled.

"How old am I, again?" Mike mumbled.

"Young enough to out-eat your father, I'm sure," Casey laughed.

"Okay, that sounds like a challenge," Derek objected.

By this point, the four of them had reached the photography studio in the mall. The secretary behind the desk looked harried. She didn't look any better when she noticed Michael with them.

"You aren't another family trying to get the perfect senior picture done, right? Look, I know this time of year is stressful and all, but we aren't your yearbook staff and-"

"Whoa, calm down. We're here for a family photo."

"Family photo?" the secretary asked. "Well, I guess we can fit you in. Stella?"

A young woman, who was probably not that much older than Mike, walked out. "Yes, Mrs. Jirgens?"

"These people want a family picture."

"Oh! How – great," the girl stumbled a bit as she stared a Michael. Derek looked over at Casey and they shared a smile. All throughout high school, both of them had seen girls look at Derek the way this Stella was staring at his son. However, unlike Derek at his age, Derek's son was not winking and trying to chat up the pretty girl. Mike's focus had moved to his little sister who had pulled on his shirt to get his attention. Not that Stella had noticed in all of her mooning.

Derek cleared his throat.

"Oh yes! Right this way," the young lady blinked and then led them back to one of the photography rooms.

The room had a light blue background and one chair in front of the background. There were also cameras and lights in different areas around the room.

"So, how did you hear about Jackson's studio?" Stella began, attempting to do her job while still clearly distracted by Derek's son.

"Colin and I go back a ways," was all Derek got out before he head a familiar voice say, "Venturi! The world must be coming to an end."

Derek smiled at the owner of the studio, Colin Jackson, as he came toward the family. "You aren't actually going to let me take a picture of the most important people in your life, are you?"

"Well, Casey's been wanting a portrait and someone would have to screw it up. So I figured I'd give that opportunity to you."

"What's in it for you?" Colin asked.

"Why does everyone assume I have an agenda for these things?" Derek pretended to be wounded.

"Because you usually do," Casey and Colin said together.

"But, agenda or not, you are here. So let's set this up." After introducing himself to Mike and Emily, the photographer gestured toward the chair.

"That looks like a throne," Mike said slightly sarcastically. "I wonder who would sit there?" Mike said as he turned to stare at his father.

"Actually, you," Colin said as he positioned the boy in front of the chair and pushed him into a seated position.

"Me? Wait what-" Mike began, but he didn't have a chance. Apparently, Colin was inspired too.

"And here," Colin said as he lifted Emily and placed her on Mike's lap. Mike instinctively grabbed her so she didn't slide off. "But what-"

"Derek, Casey? If you could stand behind your children, please?" Colin asked.

Mike looked like he wanted to say something else, but Derek took Casey's hand and led her behind the chair before Mike could form any sentences. "Just have some fun with it," was the advice from Casey of all people.

The four of them did several shots as a group before Colin decided to show Derek what he had. On the way out, Colin had turned and caught a candid shot of the children, that Derek didn't realize until later.

As Mike and Emily waited for Derek and Casey to finish, the Venturis looked through the shots one more time. "Oh," Colin said. "I did take this one candid that I would love to use to advertise my studio, if you two are okay with it."

"What candid?" Derek asked. Colin then pulled up the picture.

It was a picture of just Mike and Emily. Clearly neither of them was aware the photo was taken. Their foreheads were resting on each other's. Mike was looking down at Emily as if he was imparting something serious and important. Emily looked up at him like he was the most amazing and intelligent thing she had ever seen. It was obvious from the unconscious pose that there was love and caring in that relationship. The picture just tugged at your heart strings.

"Oh, Derek," Casey teared up a little at this picture. "Can we get this one too? Please? Mikey and Emily just look so-" she couldn't finish the statement.

"Colin, tell you what? Why don't you use one of the other proofs in your ads? I think Casey and I want to take this one home as well in an eight by ten."

Colin thanked him, although he clearly wished he could use that shot to sell more photo sessions. Casey hugged him. Derek just looked at that shot a little longer. Between the family shot and this, it was worth it. This inspiration was a masterpiece after all.

Later, over ice cream, Derek just sat back a moment and looked around him. Casey, Emily and Mike were talking about something. There were smiles and laughter…and lots of ice cream waiting to be consumed in the middle of the table. Derek had to smile himself. At this moment in time he had the perfect family. His wife, his daughter, his son. He finally understood why Casey was always pushing for her "feel good family moments". If they always felt this good, he'd push for more, too.

Derek clued in just in time to hear current conversation around the table. "Wait, what? Michael, you cannot think that Nickelback actually deserved all those Juno nominations! Have I taught you nothing about music? You have to have heard me play decent music around the house. I know you've heard me play Hot One and In Flight Safety. Heck, Case here has played Emm Gryner and Jann Arden around the house. And you defend Nickelback?"

Derek laughed at his son's lighthearted response. As Emily put in her two cents about some Wiggles knock-off, Derek decided that it was a wonderful Saturday indeed.

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia_

_United States of American_

_1:40pm_

Keith laughed at the end of the story. "That sounds like one of those classic Kodak commercials."

Derek agreed. "It is a shame they don't make those anymore. I could have suggested that storyline."

"And directed it without a queasy stomach?" Keith asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah," Derek agreed. "But that was just the calm before the storm. Or the exception that proves the rule."

"What do you mean by that?" Keith asked.

"Well, the next year…the next year showed how many problems Michael had that we'd missed. As some things kept happening over and over again, you would think-" Derek stopped speaking for a moment, almost like he couldn't push the words out of his mouth.

Waving the waiter over, Keith said, "Let's get you a beer and you take a few minutes-"

"No," Derek interrupted after a deep breath. "No, let me tell you about when Michael was sixteen. You did want to know what inspired my documentary after all, right?"

"Right," Keith agreed as he began to wonder if maybe this story was too personal to be told…or to powerful not to be. Either way, it seemed more important than ever to hear the rest of it.

- to be continued -


	8. Chapter 7: Lost Losers

_**Here's another chapter. I happen to love the Swithfoot song, "Meant to Live" that is paired with this chapter. I recommend tracking it down and listening to the song…even if you aren't reading this chapter while you listen. This chapter does have a parallel in "It Was All About Love For", so some things might seem similar, but others might seem very different.**_

_**Chapter 8 will be up next week…but there might be a bit of a delay on chapter 9. Chapter 8 is super long, however, so I might be forgiven? Maybe?**_

_**As always, I love reviews and comments. Thanks for reading.**_

**Unblended: A Beautiful Mess**

By: December

**Chapter 7 – Lost Losers**

"_We were meant to live for so much more. But we lost ourselves."_

_- Switchfoot, "Meant to Live"_

**November 5, 2032**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_12:35am_

Derek hated repeats. Even growing up, he didn't like it when networks ran episodes of shows that they had already shown once. There was no drama, no suspense. It wasn't worth it. Sure, he could watch a movie or a music video over and over again, but that was because he saw something different every time he watched. It was still new in some ways, because there was always some piece of cinematography or some trick of lighting he'd missed because he was drawn in by plot, song lyrics, or random girl writhing around on the hood of a car. (Who cared if that Whitesnake video was amazingly old? Tawny Kitaen was still hot.)

The same was true of his life. While Casey liked routine, after awhile, routine was a little annoying for Derek. Especially bad routines. Predictable patterns for good things were enjoyable in their own way, that kinda made up for their repetitive nature. Predictable patterns of bad things, on the other hand, were a form of torture. Lately, however, with his son there seemed to be a predictable pattern of bad things. For example, here is was, another Thursday night and Derek was waiting up for his son to decide to make an appearance at home.

Starting part of the way through his freshman year, Michael began to stay out late. In the beginning it was only weekend nights, which actually didn't worry Derek at first. Derek himself remembered high school, although he would bet money that Michael wouldn't believe Derek could remember "back that far", and he himself had had some late nights playing big man on campus. It annoyed Derek that some weekends, when Mike was home and not with Sally, Derek and rest of the family barely saw the boy, but he understood.

The late nights then began to bleed into Thursday and Monday. Casey noticed it first and raised the first objection to the behavior. Again, at first Derek just chalked it up to Michael being a teenager. Sure, Derek was a little annoyed (he was _NOT _worried) that Michael never brought his friends over to the house, but Derek thought (okay, rationalized) that maybe Mike was just trying to set a good example for Emily. But then Michael's behavior began to change. He was more secretive about what he had in his room, actually getting very upset when Casey offered to clean his room after he had gotten over the flu. Eye drops had suddenly appeared in the medicine cabinet and no one in the house needed eye drops for any reason. Michael was more out of it, and more willing to believe the worse of everyone.

Derek was beginning to think that Michael might be doing something very different than anything he ever did in high school or college. Sure, people offered Derek stuff in his teens, but he had never actually taken anything stronger than a beer. Derek had realized earlier this week that he couldn't say (convincingly at least) that his son was behaving in a similar way.

So, a month ago, Derek took to waiting up until Michael came home. He didn't park himself in front of the door or anything. But he'd stay awake in the master bedroom, which was across the hall from Michael's room, and listened for Mike to climb the stairs. Once Derek heard Mike's bedroom door softly close, he could get to sleep. The first few nights, Casey tried to sleep while Derek played his waiting game, but quickly found she couldn't do it. So, here it was, a Thursday night and, instead of having fun with his wife, he was waiting for his oldest to decide to come home. Repeats were hell.

"Derek," Casey sighed as she put down the proof of her latest book that she was looking over. "You are going to have to talk to him about these late nights eventually."

"Case, we don't know that he is doing anything other than being a teenager-"

"But you are worried," Casey returned. "That should be enough of a reason to start a conversation. I get that boys are different than girls-"

"Exactly-" Derek began, but Casey ignored him as she pushed on with her point.

"BUT, Mom would talk to me when she was concerned about me. Sure, at points, I wanted to roll my eyes. But it showed she cared. And, in at least one instance, it stopped me from doing something rather stupid."

Normally Derek would have had some retort or smart remark ready as a reply, but the fact that Casey might have a point kept his mouth shut.

"What would George do in this situation? Or should I ask, what did George do in this situation?"

"You made your point, Mrs. Venturi," Derek conceded.

Casey smiled at him as she nudged him with her shoulder. "Think of this as your chance to tell him a story about 'the good old days.' I know you are just dying to tell him a D-Rock story. Aren't you?"

Derek turned to look at Casey with fake shock on his face, "I know you aren't comparing D-Rock to George in the Jungle. They aren't the same thing at all!"

"Of course they aren't," Casey agreed. Derek smiled in relief. A relief which Casey shattered when she continued. "George in the Jungle actually had lyrics deeper than 'na na na' and never had a pizza tribute song. Who wrote that thing anyway? You or Ralph?"

"Hey, hey, wait a second. D-Rock was-" this time it wasn't Casey that cut him off, but a thud coming from the other side of the house.

"What was that?" Casey asked. "It sounds like it is coming from outside somewhere."

"Well, it didn't sound like a crunch of metal, so at least Michael didn't hit one of the cars trying to sneak back in."

"Derek-"

"Let's go see what the noise was, then," Derek groaned as he got out of bed, opened his bedroom door and walked across the hall. Casey followed him into Michael's darkened room and over to the window.

"Derek, we just walked into his room-"

"While he clearly wasn't here where and when he should have been. Besides, it's our house. So we can walk in and out of any room we want. And there he is," Derek added as he pointed out the window. Through the shears, with the aid of street lights, a person hanging on to the tree just outside the window was visible.

"You think Mike's in the tree?" Casey asked in confusion. Obviously, Casey had some other idea of who might be trying to gain access to the house through the window.

"Um, yeah," Derek answered. "A thief would be much quieter about the whole thing." Derek shrugged. Then looking at Casey, he raised an eyebrow, "I wonder how he got the idea. Was someone else telling him about the 'good old days'? Maybe of one covert operation in particular when danger was someone's middle name?"

"Oh, haha," Casey responded.

"Well, look at this way, Case. You'll be getting that talk with Michael that you wanted me to have." Derek shared over his shoulder as he walked out of Mike's room. He walked down the stairs and picked up a flashlight from the front hall table before leaving the house. Mike was trying to sneak into the house from the tree in the yard. At least this was different.

When Derek arrived at the base of the tree where his son was, he was just in time to see Mike slip a little. It was pretty clear that the boy had no talent in the climbing trees department. Of course, when he was younger, Derek was taking him to Maple Leaf games that he was filming for his documentary, not taking him to the park. Derek had probably never taught the boy to climb a tree. Tomorrow, this might even be funny.

Shining the flashlight up the tree at Mike, Derek said in his joking serious voice, "Michael. Get out of the tree and come in. We need to talk."

"Why sh-ssshould I?' came the stammered reply from his son,

At that moment, everything stopped being funny. This was not a sober kid Derek had caught coming in after a wild but mostly harmless high school party. This was something else. This was something outside of Derek's realm of experience.

"Michael, come off the tree. We aren't doing this outside," Derek said in his actual serious voice. Once Michael was in the house, Derek could actually see what he was dealing with.

"Th-tha…yeah, easier ssssaid than done," Mike slurred out as he tried to figure out how to get down from the tree. Watching his son struggle to get out of the tree gave Derek time to worry. What the hell had the boy gotten into? After boy managed to throw himself out of the tree and get to his feet, Derek turned and led the way into the house. He knew Michael was right behind him, even though he never looked back to confirm this.

After they both cleared the threshold of the house, Mike stopped in the front hallway. Derek walked behind him and closed the door. He took a deep breath and told himself that he was probably over-reacting, but he had to see exactly what was going on. He walked over to stand in front of Mike, noticing that Casey was almost at the bottom of the front steps. She stopped before coming all the way down, maybe to give Derek and his son space, but Derek didn't really pay much attention to that. He wanted to focus most of what he had in terms of brainpower at midnight on Mike.

Derek had no idea how to start, so he opened his mouth and hoped for the best. "Michael Venturi," Derek began, "What in the hell-"

Before he could get any farther than that, another voice interrupted him with a question. "Is Mikey okay?" the little voice asked. The little voice of his little girl, whom he had assumed was still asleep.

Everyone turned to look at the top of the steps. There stood a worried Emily, clutching a stuffed bear. That bear was like a security blanket for Emily in some ways; he was Emily's Sir Monks-A-Lot and Daphne all rolled into one. The teddy bear was originally Michael's, but when Emily was very sick when she was two, Casey had borrowed it from Michael to give Emily something to calm her down. At first the little girl wanted nothing to do with the bear. Then Casey said it belonged to Michael and she nearly lost an arm Emily reached for the bear so fast. Emily only clung to that bear now when she was worried. Apparently, whatever she had seen or heard so far tonight had bothered her.

Derek knew how she felt, but he really didn't want her awake to hear the conversation he was probably going to have to have with Michael. The problem was getting Emily to leave her brother's presence when she was concerned was near impossible. Unfortunately, that had yet to work in the other direction.

Thank God for Casey, who quickly took charge of the situation, "Sweetie, you shouldn't be up." Casey said quietly to their daughter. "Why don't we get you back into bed, hmm?"

"But I want to talk to Mikey. Mikey, you okay, right?" Emily insisted.

Emily had inherited her mother's stubbornness along with her blue eyes. She had probably also inherited the idea that Venturis always win. She didn't always put her stubbornness on display – Derek thought she had learned to pick her battles from play dates with Aunt Lizzie – when she did decide to stand her ground, it was hard to move her.

"You can talk to Mike later, Emily, I promise," Casey reasoned as she swept Emily in her arms. They had learned early on to explain Emily's choices to her while maneuvering her into the position where she had to make a choice with which he and Casey could live. "But you want to be well-rested when you talk to him, right?" As Emily nodded, Casey smiled. "So we'll just get you settled into bed again."

Derek waited until after Casey had taken Emily back into her room and shut the door. Then he turned back around to face his son.

"Michael, what in the hell do you think you are doing?" Derek wasn't exactly sure if he was asking about why Mike was in the tree or about the recreational activities that Derek now feared Mike was into.

"Getting into bed?" Mike sarcastically replied.

"Where have you been?" Derek demanded.

"Why does that matter?" was the response he received.

That question pissed Derek off. Why did it matter? It fucking mattered because Derek and Casey and even (apparently) Emily had been awake for hours worried about where he was. And being afraid tended to make Derek angry. So it mattered a lot to Derek and he wanted answers. "Don't talk back to me young man! Where have you been?" Derek shouted.

Michael didn't say anything. Just stared vacantly at him. Sick of the silence, Derek growled at his son, "Answer me."

"You just said not to talk back," Michael replied, as if Derek should have expected his lack of response. Now Derek suddenly understood how he could set off that vein in his father's head with the answers he thought were witty as a teen. They are not nearly as cute or pithy when you were on the other side of them.

"Michael Venturi, I'm warning you-"

Derek would have continued to threaten something if his son's movements hadn't stopped him. For no reason, Michael seemed to stumble over air. Then he fumbled around until he located a wall to lean against. So that made on thing clear. Michael was definitely not remotely sober at the moment. The fact that Michael was so obviously impaired that caused Derek to ask, rather stupidly, in a shocked voice, "Are you drunk?!"

"Drunk? Don't th-th….no." Michael replied.

Shit. Mike coming home stupid drunk Derek could have dealt with somehow; the hangover alone might have been enough of a lesson. But impaired yet not drunk? That left a lot of possibilities that Derek didn't want to deal with.

"He doesn't look all that hot, Derek," Casey shared as she joined Derek back in the front hall.

Derek sighed. As asking Mike wasn't getting them a lot of information quickly, Derek decided to do a different kind of information digging. Walking over to where his son was leaned against the wall, Derek lifted Mike's hair out of the way to look in his eyes. What he saw there did not make Derek feel any better about Michael must have been up to that night. "Why are your eyes bloodshot, Michael?" Derek found himself asking.

"Bloodsssho? That may be because of the X. Or was that the Everclear? It wasn't the pot brownies, but I don't remember what was in the jello ssshots-"

"Are you high?!" that came from Casey. She was able to put his shock into words.

His son was on something. His son was on something, not in his right mind, trying to get into a room next to Emily. Derek wasn't sure he even knew what to do for his son at this point. But one thing was sure. For the safety of everyone in the house, probably even Michael, his son didn't need to be in the house. Derek was not having illegal substances in his house or out of control behavior that would endanger his family under his roof.

Maybe it wasn't the best way to phrase it. Maybe this wasn't the best way to do this. But this seemed like an unfair pop quiz on material that Derek had never read. Opening up the door, Derek looked at his son and almost whispered one of the most painful things he'd ever had to say. "Get out."

"Whaa? I jus' got in!" Mike complained.

"Derek-" Casey started to say something, but Derek didn't let her finish. He was sure Casey would talk him into another course of action. It wasn't that Derek was sure this course of action was right. He had, however, decided on this course of action until he could figure out what to do. And he was going to tell Michael and Casey why he had made this decision.

"No. Get out. I cannot believe you even came here in this state! Your six year old sister-"

"Half," Mike objected from this place on the wall.

Derek stared at Michael in shock for a second. After his whole outburst, the only thought or comment Michael had was that he didn't share a mother with Emily. Emily was his sister, damnit. His sister who adored him. Derek wasn't going to give that statement of "half" any consideration at all. "Your _sister _is upstairs right now, hopefully asleep. Michael. Shit, do you understand this situation at all? I fucking care about everyone in this house. You, your sister, and your stepmother. In your current state, you probably can't control yourself and you might hurt Emily or Casey or yourself-"

"And if something happened to prec-, preci-, to Emily the world will fucking end right? I get it." Michael sneered at Derek. Or at least he tried to sneer. It didn't come across very well.

"It's not just about Emily, Michael-" Casey tried to explain, but Michael had already pushed away from the wall. Turning his back to Casey, he made his way to the door.

"Don't come home in this state again," Derek said as he passed him. It may have been phrased as an order, but Derek knew he was asking a big favor...asking his son to quit something that Derek hadn't even realized he'd started.

"Detox somewhere else? Sure, whatever. Hate to be in anyone's way when I'm not neat and clean and all. " was the response that Derek received in response. It wasn't the answer Derek wanted..

"Wait. Michael, where will you go? Derek, he needs to be somewhere safe! You can't just let him walk out into the night. Michael-" Casey was sounding as disturbed as Derek was feeling. She also had a point. While Michael clearly couldn't stay there – Derek was not setting that precedent – he should go someplace safe. Somewhere that he and Casey could find him in the morning and talk when they were all in better places mentally.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Wipe your feet next time. Heaven forbid I fucking track mud in the house." That is what Derek thought Mike muttered in reply. It didn't even make sense.

Derek had grabbed his arm at this point. Sure, Derek was kicking his son out of the house that night, but he was becoming more and more scared for him. At that point, Derek wasn't sure what he would have done if Michael had stopped and looked at him. Maybe he would have hugged the impaired young man. Maybe he would have dragged Michael to an ER to have his stomach pumped. Maybe he would have put his son in a car and just driven until Mike had sobered up. But Michael, with a strength that Derek didn't know he had, pulled out of Derek's grasp and walked out of the house without turning around. He might have attempted to show them his middle finger, but the clumsy hand gesture was hard to make out in the night.

"Fuck," was Derek's response as his son disappeared into the night.

"Derek! Aren't you going after him?" Casey asked as Derek closed the door.

"For what? You just saw him. He shook me off as if I was nothing. I'm not sure I could stop him, Casey."

"But you have to try! He's out there in who knows what state-"

"I know that, Casey!" Derek shouted before he tried to get his voice under control. "Don't you think I know that?!"

"Then why didn't you let him stay here? We'd know where he was if he was here!"

"But in here in that state? He could have hurt you or Emily or himself. And he would have thought that he could come home drugged up all the time. No. We can't make that behavior okay."

"Emily and I could have left if you were worried about us. I'm worried about him, Derek!"

"And I'm fucking worried about all of you. It's my goddamn job. To worry and protect everyone in this fucking house! What else would you have me do?"

"I'd have you know that Michael was going to a place where he was safe!"

"Fuck! What the fuck else can I do? I feel like _I'm_ the one stuck in that damn tree. I move in any way and I fall off and break something. Send Mike into the night or wake up in the morning to you, injured while Michael wasn't 'all there'. Or maybe you'd want to rush Emily to the emergency room because she was injured while around Mike - again. You know she's too young to understand this! And how would Emily and Michael feel on the other end of that?!"

"Can't you do anything?!" Casey shouted as tears started to run down her cheeks.

"What?! What can I do? If you have ideas, Case, start sharing. 'Cause I'm sure as hell listening."

"I don't know. Help. There has to be some way someone can help."

Derek took a deep breath and tried to think. "Maybe there is," Derek thought aloud as he walked down the hall to the nearest phone.

"Derek, who are you-?" but Derek ignored Casey's question as he picked up the phone and dialed a number he hadn't dialed in a while.

After more rings than Derek had patience to count, a female voice answered, "'lo?"

"Sally? It's Derek."

"Venturi?" his ex-wife asked in surprise and annoyance. "Look, it's – fuck it! It's almost one in the morning. I don't have time to listen to your shit-"

"Even if it's about Michael?"

"Anything you have to say about my weekends with Michael you can say during regular business hours."

"Look, Sally. Michael isn't here right now-"

"And he's sure as hell not here. What's your point?"

"Look, there was a problem here earlier-"

"Which is fully yours," his first wife returned. "Full custody means full problems. I don't have joint responsibility for shit anymore – because you wanted it that way."

"Sally! Look, all I'm saying is that if he calls you or anything…that you just make sure he's okay."

Sally groaned and then growled. "Well, fuck it. I had a nice drink earlier, so was in a halfway decent mood before your arrogant ass called. Because he's my son and I'm feeling like being nice, I'll bail your ass out this once. If Mike calls, I'll make sure he doesn't play in traffic or something."

"Thank you, Sally," Derek said quietly. That was the second hardest thing he had had to say that night.

"Don't call again," was the response he received before the phone was slammed down in his ear.

He wasn't sure how long he stood there with the phone at his ear before Casey came up and hugged him. She was still crying. He was numb.

Yes, Derek hated repeats. The repetition of bad things sucked. And he had a feeling this night was going to repeat a few more times – both in real life and in his head.

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia_

_United States of America_

_2pm_

After a few minutes pause, Derek continued. "That was the beginning of the end, I guess."

"Meaning?" Keith asked quietly

Derek shrugged, "The drug culture had gotten him. Oddly enough, he never came home high again…but that meant some days, he didn't come home. It went on like that for almost two years."

"And, after that?"

"After that, everything changed."

- to be continued -


	9. Chapter 8: Keeping Things Going

_**Here is the next chapter of Unblended. There will be a delay in chapter 9, in part because I'm leaving town for a while. It is my hope that chapter 9 will be finished and posted by late October. After I post chapter 9, we'll be back on a weekly schedule for the rest of the story.**_

_**As always, I recommend that you find a copy of Hootie's "sad caper" and listen along as you read this chapter. (You might need to put the song on repeat for a while.) This is a long chapter. I hope you enjoy it. As always, please review. I like to know what people are thinking. Conversations are fun.**_

**Unblended: A Beautiful Mess**

By: December

**Chapter 8 – Keeping Things Going**

"_Do you really want to play these games, just to keep things going? Or are you ready now to let it be?"_

_- Hootie and the Blowfish, "sad caper"_

**June 6, 2034**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_6:15pm_

It had been a rough year and a half for Derek. Not professionally, personally. Professionally, both he and Casey were doing amazingly well. His work was in demand and "award-winning". Her books were New York Times best sellers and recommended for book clubs and summer reading assignments in the States as well as in their home province. The current US president and the past Canadian prime minister were both fans of Casey's poetry. At one point there was even talk of a White House visit so that Casey could read some of her poetry to "the leader of the free world" in person. Professionally, they were doing well.

Personally, they were struggling with how to hold their family together. Some days Derek thought they did rather well. Other days…weren't as successful. The biggest problem was Michael. It wasn't that Michael himself was a problem, everyone in the house loved the boy (even, and maybe especially, when he frustrated them). It was the choices Michael was making that were the problem. That first night Derek caught him coming home impaired was the beginning of a pattern. Mike never came back home in that state again, but there were sometimes two or three days in a stretch where they didn't see him or know where he was. Invariably this led to a long debate between himself and Casey about whether to call the police and report him missing. To date they hadn't done so. In part because just when Derek had reached his "Oh, fuck it!" point and was picking up the phone to call the cops, Mike walked through the door with his backpack like nothing odd had happened. As he always came back, always came back appearing sober, and always came back in one piece…well….

In all of this, however, he and Casey still mandated family meals. Every day, everyone in the family that was in the house at mealtime sat down together for breakfast and dinner. Derek sometimes wondered if they were fooling themselves with these meals. It was like they were trying to play the care-free blended family that they were not, despite his and Casey's efforts. For whatever reason, Mike played along when he was in their house. Because, honestly, they couldn't _make_ him eat with them, but ate with them he did. Emily also followed the program, more because she was too young to even think about not. They could still make Emily do things. Emily, however, seemed perfectly happy spending time with them, especially when Mike was around. At times, Emily reminded him of her aunt Marti. Mike also sometimes reminded Derek of himself, but not necessarily in a good way. And Emily and Mike's relationship was nothing like the Smerek-Smarti bond that the family still talked about.

It was one of those family meals, a dinner in June, which led to a conversation that showed Derek once again how much he'd missed under the surface.

The dinner conversation began with Casey, as it always did. "So how was your day, Emily?" Casey had asked her daughter. At some point, who knew when, Casey had read that it was important to ask your children about their days. Since then she led off every dinner conversation with this question, alternating between starting with Mike or Emily. At breakfast, she would ask what people's plans were for the day.

Emily beamed at everyone at the table. "Great. I'm so excited to go back to school tomorrow. I love third grade. And that neat math trick Mike showed me helped out a lot."

"Neat math trick?" Casey asked, puzzled.

Mike shrugged. "I occasionally need a quick way to figure out weight and cost. Just passed it on."

Derek shot a look at his son as the uneasy feeling that he'd carried around for months now intensified. Weight and cost. It sounded like Mike was definitely involved in drugs somehow. Whether he was using and dealing or just using, Derek couldn't be sure. He also wasn't sure how he felt about Mike passing along his trick to Emily. On the one hand, it was a hopeful sign – Mike was helping his sister. On the other hand, even if Emily had no idea why Mike needed the trick, it made a parent a little uneasy that one child was passing on a part of the drug-using culture to the other. He didn't say anything though. What could he say, especially when he couldn't (and didn't want to) prove any of his conjecture, anyway?

"And, and, Glynis is having a party next week for her birthday and she invited me," Emily continued.

"Another one?" Derek asked. Emily had become Ms. Social Butterfly that year. It was cute, but it was beginning to add up. It felt like Emily had just been to another party yesterday.

"De-rek!" Casey objected to his question.

"What? It's like the third one," Derek defended himself. Then he pointed out, because he couldn't help himself, "Our little Emily is super popular. I wonder who she gets that from?"

Casey snorted and then laughed. "They have been a lot of parties lately. I guess it is that season. If it isn't a birthday party or an end of the school year party, it's a graduation party."

With Casey's reply, Derek saw an opportunity. If ever there was an opening to try to get back into his son's life, the topic of graduations would be it. Trying to sound off-hand about it, Derek asked, "Speaking of graduation, when is yours, Mike?"

"My what?" Mike mumbled as he reached for more rolls.

"Graduation from high school. You are a senior, after all." Derek pointed out, surprised that the word "graduation" hadn't started a conversation or a flood of words about how wonderful it was that school was about to be over.

"You noticed?" Mike asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Michael-" Unfortunately, that response from Michael was another example about how things were as of late. Derek started to scold out of reflex, but stopped when he didn't know what to complain about. Luckily, Emily asked a question before anyone noticed his pause.

"Graduation? Is that like what I did after kindergarten?" Emily asked.

Casey laughed, "A little. But it's a bigger deal since Mike is older."

"Are we going to have a party?" Emily asked, beaming in Mike's direction.

"That's up to Mike," Casey replied, trying to look composed. Derek, however, could tell the idea excited her. Beside the fact that she would have something to organize that would get her mind off of her looming submission deadline, it would be a chance to do something for Mike. Since Mike seemed to be so distant and asked for so little, Casey hadn't felt like she could throw a surprise birthday party for him, or do much more than have his favorite breakfast ready for him on his birthday, which she did every year. Casey had really wanted to do something special for Mike for awhile. It was difficult, as the boy hadn't asked for anything for his sixteenth birthday; he didn't even mentioned it and Casey hadn't been able to figure out how to bring it up without being pushy (although she tried. There were stacks of three by five cards throughout their bedroom that testified to that fact.). But something as big as a graduation? Casey probably thought she had a shot of convincing Mike to celebrate.

Derek was willing to go along with that idea as well. And a graduation party would be expected, after all.

"Might be fun, though," Derek agreed aloud, not wanting to sound too into it, because he didn't want to put Mike off of the idea. "Be nice to meet Mike's friends finally," Derek couldn't help adding. He had no idea who his son's friends were. Sure, given what he thought Mike's extra-curricular activities would be, they might not be the kind of people he'd like around his son. But until he knew more about them, Derek couldn't do anything about it. Knowledge was power. All Derek had was a first name, "Harry". That was it. He wanted to know more.

Mike scoffed. "My friend can't be paid off to spy on me. Other than that, why would you want to meet him?"

"Michael-" Again, Derek slipped into reflex scold. He knew he had to stop that.

Casey looked at Derek, as if to say, _'don't push'_ before answering Mike's question. "We would like to meet more of the people that are important to you. So when is graduation?"

Mike shrugged. "Don't know, don't care."

"You don't know?" Casey asked in surprise.

"You don't care?" Derek was shocked. That was the last thing he expected his son to say. "I couldn't wait to move on the next step when I was your age. How can you not care?"

"Because graduation doesn't apply to me."

That statement was met with silence, because Derek didn't know how to take that statement. Neither did Casey, it appeared. Graduation applied to all seniors, didn't it? High school hadn't changed that much since he'd left, had it?

"Doesn't apply to you? I don't think I understand," Casey asked what Derek had wanted to.

"I'm not graduating."

"What?" Derek asked. Michael looked way too calm to have announced that he wasn't graduating. When Derek thought he might not graduate, he freaked out. A massive study session later and he managed to make it out. But that moment took years off of his life. He still sometimes had nightmares about not graduating. His son, however, shared he wasn't graduating in the same tone that people shared that it was raining outside.

"I'm not graduating. Failing French. Barely passing everything else." Mike shrugged as he stuffed another roll in his month.

"Oh, Mike." Casey almost whispered.

"You're sure? You can't do well on your finals and pull up your French grade? Still graduate?" Derek asked. He had to ask. People had probably though that he wasn't going to get out of high school either. Exams saved his ass; maybe they could save Mike's?

Mike mumbled something around the roll that sounding like he was opting out of finals. But Derek couldn't have heard that right. "What was that?" Derek asked. Maybe shouted from the wince and look Casey shot him.

"Nothing. I just don't think there is anything that we can do. Big whoop."

Derek had no idea how to respond to that. Okay, Derek had no idea how to respond civilly to that, so he just stayed quiet. Casey, apparently, didn't know where to take the conversation after that, either, so she stayed quiet, too. For about ten minutes, all anyone could hear was cutlery on plates. Then Mike excused himself and went to his room. Emily finished soon after that, and Casey got her settled in her room with a book before coming to find Derek in his basement office. He was expecting her. He knew they had to talk about this.

"So…what do we do about Mike?" Derek asked as Casey crossed the threshold. He sighed in his head when he realized how many of his conversations with Casey of late had started with this question.

"I…how did we miss this?" Casey asked sadly as she sat next to Derek.

"Well, we never did go to a parent-teacher conference," Derek felt pained to point out.

"I know," Casey lamented. "And part of me always found that odd, you know? I realize that with the shooting schedule for your family documentary and the crazy book tour and Emily being so young, we couldn't make the freshmen parents' night…but we never heard anything about it again. I wanted to ask about it. Em always seems to be complaining about parents –"

"That's because Emily Davis went to the dark side when she became a teacher," Derek felt compelled to add. This was his attempt at a joke, trying to make the conversation less painful.

Casey (wisely) ignored him. "But I deferred to you in how to handle Mike," she added to the end of her thought.

"Which makes this my fault," Derek said.

"De-rek! I'm not saying-"

"I know what you meant, Casey," Derek assured her. "But it is my fault, in a way. School was never my thing, not until Queens, anyway. So I never pushed. Probably should have."

For a moment Casey seemed to be torn between agreeing with him and defending him against himself. She must have reached a compromise in her head because she finally said, "None of these tells us what we should do now."

After a few minutes of silence, Derek took a deep breath. After playing a round of "What would [insert male member of his family] do?" in his head, he think he had a starting point. "Well, it's past time we did some research."

"Research?"

"Come on, Case. You are a keener, you should already know where I'm going with this."

"I have no idea."

"Think for a second. We don't know how Michael is doing academically or how he is handling high school, right?"

"True," Casey answered, still looking confused.

"And what did you used to tell me to do when I didn't know something about you and it bothered me?"

"'Stop reading my diary, you ass'?" Casey tried to smile.

"Okay, that…and to _ask_ you."

"Which you usually didn't do," Casey pointed out.

"Because that would have been admitting defeat and Venturis never lose."

"Okay…how does that help us?"

Derek shook his head. "Casey, Casey, Casey. Since we don't know what is going on with Mike and graduation, we'll just ask."

"Michael is not going to tell us any more than he has," Casey pointed out.

"Space Case, I never said we were going to ask Michael. You have an appointment free day tomorrow, right?"

"Yes," Casey confirmed warily.

"Good. Because are going to Michael's school tomorrow to ask all his teachers how he's doing."

That ended the conversation as far as Derek was concerned. Of course, Casey had more to say and tried to create a plan of action, but Derek didn't focus on Casey's plans. Oddly enough, going back to talk to all of these teachers made him nervous. It even disturbed his sleep that night. He really wasn't sure what he was most worried about, whether he would get very bad news about Mike or whether the teachers would blame Derek for any problems they had with Mike. All of this upcoming tension just made Monday harder.

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_2:30 pm_

"Wait, so you and Casey just showed up at the school that Monday? No warning?" Keith asked.

"No warning. I didn't think about telling anyone at the school to expect us – I guess I wanted the truth and thought that if I gave them time to prepare, they'd prepare to cover their asses. Casey wanted to tell Michael, but I wouldn't let her to that either. It was a surprise attack, fact finding mission. At least at first."

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, in a sense?" Keith clarified.

"Yeah, pretty much."

Keith nodded, but then he found himself going back over something Derek said. "It started out as a fact finding mission at first? What did it become?"

Derek shrugged. "We had – I had – originally decided to go to the school to find out what was going on directly from Michael's teachers. You know, the kind of thing that would have been covered in a parent-teacher conference-"

"Which I'm still not sure how the hell you got out of. Imani's high school practically harassed us the one time I had a conflict with Parents' Night. Did you find out why you weren't contacted for parent-teacher conferences after Michael's first year?"

"No. We didn't," Derek took a deep breath. "To be fair, though, five minutes into these conversations and I was off and running, doing something else."

"Something else?"

"Well, everyone in the school was so accommodating, so busy kissing ass, that I probably could have gotten anything I wanted. In talking to the first of Michael's seven teachers about how well he wasn't doing in the course, I found myself asking out loud if Michael could do anything to improve his grade. Suddenly, a solution was volunteered. When the second teacher did the same thing, I noticed the pattern and decided to exploit it."

"Did Casey have an opinion on what you were doing? On your asking special treatment for your son based on who you were?"

"On who we both were. People knew about Casey and were kissing her butt just as hard as they were bowing over my ass. In fact, a few of the teachers thought Michael was Casey's biological son. Casey never corrected them, thanking a few of them for they concern about her son," Derek shrugged. "I'm sure she had an opinion, but I don't know what it was."

"So it was a whole day of let's make a deal on behalf of your son?"

"Yes."

"And every teacher just offered up options?" Keith asked, surprised.

"Almost every teacher," Derek corrected.

"Almost every teacher?" Keith laughed. "A teacher dared to not bow and kiss?"

Derek nodded. "Yes. Just the one. But she'd had years of practice on calling me and Casey on things. And, by that point, she'd gotten over whatever teenage crush she had on me. She had just enough of an opinion to tell me no and mean it."

**June 7, 2034**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_9am_

To say the day hadn't gone the way Derek expected was an understatement. Everyone bent over backwards to help them. People smiled and went above and beyond the call of duty, when they weren't staring in shock or whispering. A few of the kids, who were clearly into drama, looked like they would have loved to grab him and force him to work with them.

Casey thought that was funny. She did roll her eyes at first and said, "How can you still be the Great Venturi in this place? Don't they have another hockey god by now?"

"But you see, Case," Derek pointed out. "I'm no longer a hockey god, but an alum who 'made good'."

"Well, I'm an alumna who has done amazing things and no one is drooling over me," Casey objected.

"Case, Case, Case. That's because no one reads anymore." He'd gotten smacked in the arm for that.

Asking for Michael's teachers to work out ways for the boy to graduate was not something Derek planned to do. He was just so disheartened in what he was hearing about Michael's performance when he asked the first teacher if there was anything Michael could do to better perform in the class. He didn't expect the teacher to immediately come up with a solution, so that "the whole family could enjoy graduation". After the second teacher did this, Derek began to start by asking them all to make exceptions. By the fourth teacher, he'd come to expect it.

As they were walking down the hall to Michael's next teacher, Casey turned to look at Derek. "Do you think, while we're here, I can pop in and say hi to Em? With all the stuff going on lately, I haven't seen her in awhile."

Emily Davis, Emily Davis Tourrant now, taught at their old high school. Derek laughed when Casey first told him what Emily was doing. "She'd studied that place so thoroughly, she just had go back. And as a teacher? She probably got that from spending so much time with a keener like you."

As Derek looked down at the list of teachers to whom they still needed to talk, he shook his head. "You won't need to make a special stop to see Emily."

"Why? And don't say something like because we both have working cellberries," Casey said as she looked at him.

"You won't need to make a special stop because she's next on our list."

"What? Really?" Casey asked as she took the sheet of paper out of Derek's hands.

"Apparently, Emily teaches Michael."

"She never mentioned it," Casey said quietly as they reached a classroom.

"Well, you can ask her about that today," Derek said as they reached Emily's classroom and knocked on the door.

"_La réponse est toujours non, Hamilton_," was their old friend's response to the knock.

Derek had no idea what that even meant. Luckily Casey, who clearly hadn't lost her French, started the conversation, "_Salut, Emily_."

"_Casey! Oh mon Dieu. Salut! Ca va_?" Emily replied as she jumped up from her desk.

"_Je suis bien. Comment es-tu_?"

"_Accord. Un peu fou. Avec monter de remise des diplômes, vous seriez étonné au travail_!"

"_Je te crois_," Casey laughed. Derek was completely lost. He cleared his throat. Casey did at least briefly look over at him, but Emily still hadn't noticed his presence. Casey's friend had moved on.

"_Mais que fais-tu ici? Je signifie, c'est ma période libre, mais_-"

"_En fait, Derek et je_-" Casey began and Emily's eyes got big.

"_Derek est ici_?" Emily asked as she began to look around the room and finally notice Derek's presence.

"Hello, Emily."

"_Salut, Derek_." Emily smiled, although she still looked confused about why Derek and Casey were there. Of course, there was no way she was as confused as Derek was. They weren't in the French speaking part of Canada; he shouldn't be expected to understand fluent French, especially while under stress.

"Emily…you do remember that I don't speak French, right?" Derek felt the need to point out.

"_Oh ouais. Cela a raison. 'La fenêtre a mal à la tête'_," Emily replied with a laugh.

"And that's still not English," Derek pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

"_Je suis désolé, je signifie_…," Emily blinked and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," she began again. "My classes are emersion. I actually spend most of the day thinking in French. It takes a little while to flip the switch back to English now."

Derek nodded. "And now I finally understand you."

Emily laughed and then smiled. "But what in the world are the two of you doing here? Especially you, Derek. I doubt you want to have lunch with us as we talk about Casey's new book or the cute thing my namesake did or how you messed up this week."

"How I messed up this week?" Derek teased as he looked over at Casey with a raised eyebrow.

"And that's not the point, so we should move on," Casey began. "In fact, I think we should have a seat."

"A seat? This is beginning to feel like a parent-teacher conference," Emily laughed as she walked back to her desk.

"That's because…it kinda is Em," Casey said quietly as she pulled two chairs in front of Emily's desk. Then she sat. Derek waited until Emily sat back down before he also sat. He blamed Casey for that particular habit.

"So, apparently, Michael is in your class," Derek began as Emily looked at them.

Emily's face looked pretty closed off. "Yes, he is," was her only response.

"And, we heard that he isn't doing well-" Derek continued.

"He's failing," Emily interrupted calmly.

"That's what he thought," Casey murmured.

"Well, good for him," Emily returned.

"As you know, he's a senior this year," Derek tried again.

Emily just stared at him.

"And," Derek began after staring back at Emily for a few seconds, "I was wondering-"

"No."

Derek blinked. "What?"

"No, there is nothing your son can do to pass."

"Emily, maybe there is some extra credit or something that he can-" Derek started to say, planning to turn on the charm to his ends.

"No," Emily interrupted again, seemingly unmoved. "He's failing. He deserves to fail. It doesn't matter who he is related to."

"You aren't going to be reasonable about this?" Derek objected.

"I'm not going to be bullied into passing him," Emily returned.

"Look, Emily-"

"No, uh-uh. _Non_," Emily said. "He deserves to fail. In the last twenty classes, I've seen him in class five times. Not that it matters if he is here or not. My classes are emersion and the boy never adds anything to the conversation. He never replies with the correct French responses. He comes in to class to stare out the window and nap. I'm not rewarding that kind of behavior."

"Emily, he's a teenager. I think he just needed some time to see the error of his ways and-"

"He needs to learn from his mistakes, then," Emily said. "He can't trade on being a Venturi the rest of his life."

"He trades on being a Venturi in your class?" Casey asked, sounding as surprised at Derek felt.

"No," Emily had to admit. "But if your husband pulls this shit off, he will."

"Look, Emily-" Derek didn't know what else he would have said, but Casey touched his arm, which got him to shut up and sit down in his chair.

"Em," Casey began, "all of your classes are advanced, aren't they?"

"Yes," Emily said cautiously.

"And students have to take a test to even get a seat, right?" Casey continued.

"Yes, they do."

"So, Michael took this test. And he scored well enough to get in," Casey pointed out quietly.

"Well…yes, he did. I mean, the multiple choice score was a little all over the place. That could have been more random guesses. And he managed to string some written French together, but it was the oral part that brought up his overall score."

"Really?" Casey asked. "How?"

"He performed well in a French conversation. It was about asking directions in Quebec. It was the first year we'd use that question, so he couldn't have prepared for it beforehand. It was almost as if he'd had a similar conversation before," Emily added as if it were an afterthought.

"And when he responds in French class, do the responses always make no sense?" Casey continued.

"It's not that they don't make sense; it is just that they don't address the question. I have gotten more _je ne sais pas_, _je ne comprend pas_, and _je sais rein_ responses from that boy! He even once confessed to being a bored idiot. But…when he uses these cop-out answers, he does seem to use them correctly. But that doesn't change-"

"Em," Casey jumped in, "the last few years have been really hard on Michael. You know that."

"Casey-"

"He's really smart, too. You must see that. He's smarter than Derek was at his age."

"Ouch," Derek muttered, but no one paid attention to him.

"In some ways," Casey continued, "I think he is smarter than I was at his age. It's just taken him a while to know where to focus that talent and energy."

"Casey-"

"Emily, please. For me?" Casey pleaded.

After a few minutes, Emily sighed. "_Mon Dieu_! This goes against all of my principles, but, only because you asked Casey." Emily looked at the two of them. "Never ask this of me again."

Derek only nodded. As he and Casey rose to leave the room, Casey turned to look at Emily and said, "About Thursday-"

"I'm actually going to cancel," Emily said.

"But, Em-"

"No," Emily held up a hand. "I'm helping Michael against my better judgment and I'm feeling a little pushed into it. Oh, I'll get over it," Emily insisted at seeing Casey's face. "But I think a need a few days without seeing either one of you."

"Em," Casey said sadly.

"It's okay, Casey. Michael is just very luckily to have you as a stepmother. If he is as smart as you say, I hope he realizes that."

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_2:45pm_

"So Casey's friend caved, as well," Keith said more than asked.

"Only because of Casey."

"Did you see Michael while you were there making the rounds?" Keith asked after a pause.

"No. Didn't even think to look for him," Derek answered.

"So, did all the pushing and pulling behind the scenes work? Make a difference?"

"Oh, it made a difference," Derek agreed, but something didn't sound right in his voice. "Just not the difference we were expecting."

**June 8, 2034**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_2:30pm_

Monday was gone before Derek knew it. When Tuesday dawned, Derek knew he'd find out what all of their efforts were worth. He was pretty useless all day. Casey was jumpy as well, in part because she wanted to talk to Mike about Monday. Derek didn't think that was such a good idea, so he didn't let Casey start that conversation. But after the children had left, Derek and Casey worried about Mike around their errands. Both also stay close to home that day, knowing that the high school was getting out an hour earlier that Tuesday and they hoped to talk with Mike when he came home that afternoon. Maybe together, the three of them could work on a plan to get Mike on the road to graduation.

It was practically 2:30 on the dot when Derek and Casey, who were waiting in the living room, heard the door open. Mike didn't say anything, but Derek knew who had just come in the house. It was time to start the conversation. In a voice load enough to be heard at the front door, Derek said, "Mike, if you have a minute, we would like to talk with you."

After about a minute Michael appeared by the door to the living room and then walked through. He face was a little blank and it was hard to read his eyes. And he wasn't volunteering information. Derek was expecting a reaction of some sort, most likely relief. He had no idea how to start this conversation without reaction from Michael. He'd even looked over at Casey for help.

Casey obviously wasn't much of a help either. He could also see her over-thinking her possible responses. That she was as lost as Derek was showed when all Casey could think of to ask was, "How was school today?"

"I'm not doing it," Mike replied.

"Excuse me?" Derek asked, more so from shock and confusion than from an attempt to scold. The refusal to make changes to graduate seemed strange. And it was still unclear, even given everything Derek and Casey had arranged the day before, what "it" was in this case.

"I'm not doing it. I'm not jumping through the hoops you had setup so I can graduate. In fact I can't believe you did that."

Well, at least Derek now knew what "it" was. And Michael seemed to be angry about it. Derek could finally read his son's eyes. His son was angry. But maybe Michael didn't understand. If Derek could explain it to him, maybe that would help. "Michael-" Derek attempted to begin is explanation, but Michael cut him off.

"And don't pretend that you didn't do anything. I might have believed that you didn't, until I talked with Madame Davis."

Somehow, Derek wasn't' surprised that Emily Davis was the problem. Especially after the conversation the three of them had yesterday. "What did she say?"

"That she didn't want to do what you asked her." Mike answered.

Derek turned to Casey. "I told you that-"

"I said she didn't want to do it," Mike interrupted, "but because your wife butted in and begged, she relented. Seems she's a friend. Who fuckin' knew?"

Derek was about to object to that entire reply, the content, the tone, and the language when Casey stopped him, trying to talk with Mike. Michael, true to form at this point, cut her off. "Why were you talking to the teachers anyway? I mean, I don't get why this matters to you. It's not like I'm yours or anything," Mike said to Casey.

Casey paled at that. Derek knew that she was remembering how Sally threw that line at her in the courtroom all those years ago. But Derek also knew that the statement hurt Casey, even without the memory. Casey probably loved Michael as much as Derek did, and she had been a part of his life (even though Mike didn't know it) since the day he was born. Sure she wasn't his birth mother, but Casey still saw herself, still thought she was part of Mike's family. And she was. All yesterday, she had never corrected people once when they called Michael "your son" because she cared about Mike like he was her son. To listen to Mike invalidate that, just to be hurtful -

"Michael, that was uncalled for!" Derek heard himself objecting before he realized that he had opened his mouth. "You will apologize to Casey-"

"Why?!" Mike shouted at Derek as he got to his feet. "It's true! I'm not hers. If I was hers, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with."

"What do you mean by that?!" Derek may have sounded angry, but he was more shocked than anything. If Michael were Casey's biological son, then something would be different? What was his son trying to say? It wasn't as if Casey was an evil stepmother at all and they didn't try to play favorites, so where-?

"Let's be honest for a second, Derek, shall we?" Mike stared him down. Derek knew that his eyes narrowed at his son's decision to suddenly use his first name instead of calling him Dad or Father. Michael was deliberately trying to be insulting. "The only way I would have been worth you giving a damn about is if I was Casey's son OR if Casey never came back into the picture so you could have continued to play house with Mom-."

Mike continued speaking, but Derek could honestly say he didn't hear the rest of it. "_The only way I would have been worth you giving a damn about?"_ Was Michael kidding?! He gave a damn about Michael! He loved Michael. He fed him, clothed him, _tried_ to help when Michael allowed him to. Almost every fight that he'd had with Mike over the past year and a half was because Derek cared about him. If he didn't care, he would have just let Michael come in whacked out of his mind that night. He could have easily taken Casey and Emily somewhere else and just come back in the morning. Hell, if he hadn't cared, he would have just handed Mike back to Sally after that crazy party when Michael was eight and not bothered to visit after that.

How much of the conversation Derek missed as he processed his shock, he didn't know. But he did hear Michael sneer at Casey, "Yeah, yeah. I know. Go fuck off somewhere else for the moment. Don't worry. I'm going."

What the fuck?! "Michael!" Derek shouted as he started to go after him. But he didn't get very far. Casey grabbed his arm to stop Derek from tearing up the stairs after his son.

"Derek…let's let him cool down a bit, okay?"

"Let him cool down a bit?! Casey-"

"No, hear me out," Casey took a deep breath. "He's angry that we tried to help and probably the way we tried to help-"

"But Case-"

"And you are beyond pissed off right now-"

"Well, duh, but what does that-"

"All that would happen right now, if you went after him, is a lot of shouting. Derek, I'm tiring of the shouting. I think we've both shouted at Mike enough for today, hm?"

Derek took a deep breath himself. "Okay, you have a point that talking to Michael now would probably degenerate into a shouting match."

"Again."

"…again. But we do have to talk about this."

Casey nodded. "But we need to think about it, too. Both of us. We need to try to see Mike's side of this-"

"Mike's side?! Are you serious?"

"Yes," Casey sighed. "Neither one of us is happy with some of the choices he's made, but maybe he has a right not to be happy with us right now."

"He has a right not to be happy?! We were just trying to help him-"

"Without talking to him about our plans for helping. We have no idea how his teachers presented what we negotiated to them and we didn't tell him what he was walking into when he left for school today. We may not have necessarily been wrong-"

"Not _necessarily_ been wrong?"

"But, he's reacting from his experience. I think…I think we all need to take a few minutes and just talk calmly later. And this time maybe plan the conversation better."

"Do you honestly think three by five cards will work in this instance?"

Casey threw him a dirty look but said, "We've tried almost everything else, haven't we?"

So the two of them decided to leave Michael alone until after dinner. Derek retreated to his basement office for awhile. Casey when to her workspace off the living room until Emily came home. Then, the two women worked on dinner. Derek walked into the kitchen to help Casey move food to the table as Casey sent Emily up to get Michael.

Looking back on everything, Derek can still say that what happened next was not something he had ever seen coming.

The first warning that Derek had that something was wrong was the way Emily entered the kitchen. It was about twenty minutes before dinner and Derek was in the kitchen watching Casey finishing up the meal. In part he was in the kitchen so he could put off talking to Michael just a little longer. He was still a little angry about earlier, but trying to think about it from Michael's point of view (at Casey's insistence) did also give him some pause. He hadn't worked out everything in his head or heart yet, so he didn't want to charge up to see his son and start another fight.

When Emily came into the kitchen, she was quiet. She had something in her right hand, which was behind her back. And she kept looking down at her feet as she shifted her weight from right to left. When she looked up, she had that look on her face that Emily only got if she knew she was in trouble, knew she _should_ be in trouble, or thought she was in trouble. "Daddy?" she asked in a very subdued voice.

"Yes, Emily?" Derek replied. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Casey had turned off a few burners on the stove. She may be trying to look busy, since Emily approached Derek first, but she was keeping an eye on the whole situation. Emily's behavior clearly worried Casey, too.

"Um…see, I went in to Mikey's room," Emily began, still looking wary, "to bring him down with me. And he wasn't there, but his bed was all made up and everything. So I called him and called him, but he didn't answer. And I looked around the room and in his closet, 'cause maybe he was playing hide and go seek. And I saw his book bag, but I didn't see his duffel bag that he took on the trip that one time. And I looked on his desk and I saw this." Emily pulled her right hand from behind her back. In that hand she had a small envelope with the words "Derek Venturi" on it.

"I know I'm not just supposed to go in his room without knocking but he didn't answer and there was this and-"

"Emily, it's okay," Casey said quietly as she tried to calm Emily down. Emily fell silent and just started looking at her feet again. Derek took the envelope and opened it.

When Marti asked him what it said later, Derek found he couldn't recite it, like Casey was able to. In that moment, he understood what he was reading in the aggregate, but only a few phrases stood out. Phrases like "so I'm leaving", "I'm an adult", "Don't try to find me;" "Don't call the police.".

He wasn't sure what his face looked like as he read, but it clearly worried both females in the room. "Daddy?" Emily asked quietly. "Are we…are Mikey and I in trouble?"

Derek couldn't answer beyond a shake of his head. Casey, seeing whatever she saw, cut off every kitchen appliance that was on and came over to Derek. "No sweetie," Casey said. "No one is in trouble. But why don't you go to your room a read for a bit? We'll call you when dinner's ready."

Emily nodded quietly. "Okay," she said quietly as she slowly turned to leave the room. But she turned back around and looked at Derek, "Daddy?" she repeated again, softly.

Derek knew he had to say something, but he couldn't think of what. He finally just nodded. Emily still looked a little subdued and frightened, but she did leave the room after that.

If Derek had been less blind-sided by the note, he would have expected a Casey rant. If Derek was less shocked, he would have been worried that there wasn't one. That was probably why he didn't have a strong hold on the note and Casey was just able to take the note out of his hands.

"Oh my God," she breathed out as she read it. Derek wasn't sure if she said anything else, because the next time he looked over at her, her knees were buckling.

"Casey!" he jumped up at caught her. "Are you alright?"

Casey merely shook her head. Oddly enough, she wasn't crying, but she was clearly upset. But, she appeared to be able to stand on her own, so Derek let her go and stepped away from her to the doorway.

"Derek…" he heard Casey say behind him after a few beats. "What do we do? Do we call the police?"

"No," Derek replied. "They can't do anything, anyway."

"He's your son," Casey pointed out.

"Who is eighteen," Derek replied in a strangely neutral voice. It didn't even feel like he was talking. It was surreal, almost like he was watching this all unfold, not living it.

"But-"

"He's an adult, Casey. An adult who has no record of mental problems. Even if they did find him, if he said they didn't want to come home, they couldn't make him."

"But…" Casey took a deep breath to ward off the breaking in her voice. Then she continued, "Where would he go?"

"I don't know," Derek thought it would hurt a lot more to voice that truth than it did. At the moment, it just felt like a dried fact.

"Sally?"

"If he went to Sally, she'd send him back here," at least Derek thought she would. And now, for some reason, he was leaning on the kitchen doorframe.

"Derek," Casey began again after a few minutes, "What are we going to tell Emily?" she whispered.

Derek stepped away from the kitchen doorway…and then punched the wall. He didn't register any pain in his hand, but Casey stopped him from hitting the wall again anyway. The next twenty minutes was a bit of a blur. Derek wasn't even sure whether or not he cried. All he knew for sure is that dinner that night was out at some family restaurant.

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_3:15pm_

Keith was staring at Derek in shock. What in the hell did you say after that?

Derek sighed. "Yeah. So we didn't hear from him for a long time after that."

"What…did you end up telling Emily?" Keith asked. He's sure he could have asked a lot of other questions, but he wasn't sure what those would be.

"We actually didn't tell her anything right away," Derek gave one of those brief, cheerless laughs. "I think we were still in denial about what happened. Michael had, in the past, been gone for days at a time. So we didn't say anything about it for awhile. Emily didn't ask, although she was very quiet for that handful of days. But, after a week had gone by, we knew we had to say something."

"So?"

Derek ran a hand through his hair. "I chickened out. Casey was the one who told her. Emily cried for days. Then, suddenly, she stopped crying. She almost seemed to be like herself, except she was always on her best behavior." Derek paused for a moment. "Boy, if I had realized that earlier, I probably could have seen a few things coming."

"What was it like at home after that?" Keith ventured to ask.

"It was strained. On edge. And every time the doorbell rang, one of us would rush to the door, hoping that maybe Michael was on the other end of it. For her birthday, we just had a small family thing for Emily. She thanked everyone very nicely for her gifts, but always seemed to be looking for something else. That first Thanksgiving dinner was hell. I don't remember much except there being this big missing-" Derek stopped for a moment to take a breath. Keith didn't say anything, sure that Derek just wanted a moment to pull it together. A minute later, Derek continued. "And that first Christmas-"

"The first Christmas?"

Derek nodded. "We approached the holiday trying to make it as enjoyable as we could for Emily. She still believed in Santa Claus, which was surprising for an eight year old, so we wanted to be sure Santa got her what she wanted. The thing was, she didn't share with any of us what she asked Santa for. From Christmas Eve to Boxing Day…"

"Derek?" Keith asked quietly after Derek seemed to trail off and just stop.

Derek shook his head, as if he was trying to come back to the present. "Well, you wanted to know why I didn't think we should tell this story, right? So you need to hear about that first Christmas after Michael left."

- to be continued -

Translation Note:

According to Free Translation and the various people I asked who know French, below is the English version of the French conversation between Emily (Davis) and Casey.

_"The answer is still no, Hamilton."_

_"Hi, Emily."_

_"Casey! Oh my God. Hi! How are you?"_

_"I'm fine. How are you?"_

_"Okay. A little crazy. With graduation coming up, you'd be surprised at the work!"_

_"I believe you."_

_"But what are you doing here? I mean, it is my free period, but-"_

_"Actually, Derek and I-"_

_"Derek's here?"_

"_Hi, Derek."_

_"Oh yeah. That's right. The window has a headache." (This is Emily's longer French response to Derek reminding her that he didn't speak French)_

_"I'm sorry, I mean..."_


	10. Chapter 9: The Tricks Hope Plays

**Chapter 9 – The Tricks Hope Plays**

"_That makes me worse off than you are."_

_Chantal Kreviazuk, "Surrounded"_

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_3:20pm _

Derek shook his head. "Well, you wanted to know why I didn't think we should tell this story, right? So you need to hear about that first Christmas after Michael left."

Keith nodded and waited for a story. What he got after a few moments was a "Fuck!" and the rather violent fist pound on the table.

"You…can't actually tell that story, can you?" Keith asked.

Derek merely shook his head.

"Then skip it."

"Skip it?" Derek asked.

"Yes," Keith nodded. "I might not know what happened, but it was probably hell. Two holidays without your son, not knowing where he was or how to find him? Shit. I was frantic that one Thanksgiving on a cruise when we couldn't locate Imani for _five_ _minutes_; I still can't talk about that trip very well. And, as I'm sure the story was plastered all over Canada for months-"

"It wasn't," Derek corrected, "Not at first."

"It wasn't?" Keith asked, shocked. "But you were a BFD by then, so-"

'BFD?' the Canadian asked

"Sorry," Keith smiled. "Imani-isms work themselves into my speech sometimes. A BFD is a 'Big Freakin' Deal'."

"Freakin'?"

"My daughter tries to keep things clean for me, as to not shatter any of my illusions. I encourage her in this," Keith's reply was met by Derek's laughter, but the producer didn't let that side-track him. "That aside, how in the world did you keep it out of the press?"

"We told next to no one and were able to cover up the story for awhile."

"A while?"

"About a year."

"A whole year?" Keith repeated. "That's rather impressive."

Derek shrugged. "Maybe. But we couldn't hide it forever. And when it did come out, it brought one of the worst things with it.'

**June 8, 2035**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_2:30pm_

"So, fucking deal with it! Now! Or else," Derek shouted in the phone before he hung up.

Normally, Casey would have verbally chastised him (at length) on his use of language. While she did raise an eyebrow at the rate at which he had dropped the f-bomb during his conversation, she was too busy having frantic conversations of her own – with her publisher, her agent, her management team, and her personal assistant. Her conversations were less colorful than Derek, but they were just as angry and urgent. The similarity in tone of the conversations was because they had the same subject.

There was a leak in Team Venturi. And it leaked the worse thing possible.

With just a note, Michael had left them a year ago. The whole family was still part of the walking wounded, especially after Christmas. Time had not dulled this pain at all. The advantage was that no one, outside of family, Derek and Casey's close friends, and their personal assistants knew that Michael had left. For some reason, Emily had not told any of her friends about her missing brother; she just went from talking about him constantly (when Mike still lived with them) to never mentioning him at all (once Mike left). And Derek and Casey had purposely not told anyone beyond their respective personal assistants about what happened. As they had become one of Canada's darling couples, they didn't want the popular press attention that having a "missing" child would bring.

They had gone almost a whole year with their private pain flying under the radar. Then, two weeks ago, TMZ had some strange rumblings about "the Great Venturi Tragedy". Neither Casey nor Derek had paid much attention to the rumors because they were on TMZ. No one took TMZ seriously. But a week ago, Kevin Fraizer ran a breaking news story on ET about Derek and Casey Venturi's missing son. Then the firestorm started. Press camped out in front of their house, in front of Derek's office, and in front of Emily's school. Photographers followed Casey to meetings, shouting questions at her. One overzealous "member of the press" almost ran Casey off the road trying to follow her.

The only thing that could have shattered their quiet grieving so spectacularly was a leak. Someone they trusted and knew and/or paid had ratted them out for money. Derek was bound and determined to find out who it was and destroy them.

The week had been very hard. Thursday had been so harrowing, between Casey's near car accident and another reporter following Emily into her school, that everyone was home that day. Emily was upstairs taking a nap. Derek and Casey were on the phone, looking for a leak while trying to make the Michael issue private again. How well they were doing varied by the minute.

The one thing they had accomplished was peace in their neighborhood. The press had been asked, warned, and forced away…and, for the moment, it seemed to be working. Derek just hoped that peace held.

Casey sighed from her position on the couch. "There has got to be a better way to do this," she whispered as she put down her phone.

Derek shrugged. "We could fire everyone. Completely clean house."

Casey shook her head. "I'm not sure that would work. And, besides, we like the people working around us. I would hate to fire someone who had nothing to do with this."

Derek walked over to the window to look out on the street. It was finally the quiet neighborhood street it used to be before the leak. It looked like another June day, like so many he had in this house. If he closed his eyes, he was sure he could almost hear his children coming home from school. Children because part of him expected to hear Mike, too, not just Emily.

He hadn't realized the Casey had gotten up until he felt her arm around his waist. "I miss him, too, Derek."

"I just wish I knew where the fuck he was!" Derek knew his voice sounded harsh, but he felt breakable. Casey knew him well enough to know this and to pull him into a hug. He had just closed his arms around her when the doorbell rang.

"Who in the world…?" Casey asked

"Stay here," Derek insisted. "I'll answer it." If it was a member of the press, Derek was going to introduce him to Mister Fist. The assault charge would be worth it.

Leaving Casey in the living room, Derek walked to the front door. Opening it, he was prepared to tell someone off…but he wasn't expecting who was on the other side.

A kid who couldn't be more than twenty was on the other side of the door. He was just a little taller than Derek. Blond with brown eyes. He was wearing jeans, a wrinkled T-shirt, and some plastic bracelet on his wrist. The kid did look a little like…. Derek stopped that thought quickly. He'd been seeing Michael everywhere lately and he wasn't about to just accept anyone who looked a little like his son. Besides, while Derek had seen Michael everywhere, he hadn't necessarily felt Michael everywhere. Not that he shared that with Casey. It involved using the f-word and sounding amazingly girly; if she didn't tease him to death, she'd worry about him more.

"Who are you and what to do you want?" Derek growled at the stranger in front of him.

The young man looked up. Grabbing his arm in what looked like a nervous gesture, he blinked a few times. He opened his mouth a few times, but nothing came out. Just when Derek was about to order this kid off of his property, the young man finally found his voice. "Dad?"

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_3:47pm _

"Dad?" Keith asked after a pause. "So the stranger was Michael coming home? But wait. That doesn't make sense."

"That's right. It doesn't," Derek agreed

"So, wait. Was that Michael at your door?"

"Yes and no," Derek answered.

"Yes AND no?" Keith sought clarification. "I thought it would be one or the other. Like a mutual exclusive thing. Either this guy was your son or he wasn't."

"Well, let's put it this way. He wasn't my son, but he played him on TV," Derek said with a sneer that ended with a flat laugh. After that, Derek knocked back the remaining water in his water glass like it was a shot of something much more potent.

Given this story, Keith almost wished he could pass the director some "top shelf shit". Unfortunately, all Keith could give him were questions. "Played him on TV?"

Derek nodded. "It wouldn't be a Hollywood worthy story without a twist, right? So, yes, I didn't see my real son until last November…but this guy? If he had had his way, I wouldn't have even been looking for Michael in 2042."

**July 8, 2035**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_1:15pm_

Later he would realize that the driving force behind what happened that day was fear. The fear was buried under anger, because he was Derek Venturi and couldn't show fear, but fear was still the driving force. Fear of what almost happened. Fear of what he had been about to do. Fear of what could have happened to Casey and Emily if he had. And – at the heart of it - the continued fear for Michael. That was probably the hardest fear to handle, if only because it had begun to ebb over the last month.

He hadn't initially planned to return home that early. He had just been at his office, staring off into space and not working on any of his latest projects. He'd been thinking about Michael – about the kid claiming to be Michael – and he had been wondering why he hadn't completely accepted him. What was he waiting for? Why was there this internal pause – like something wouldn't let him accept this kid as his own? Did he just not want to be happy?

To be fair, it wasn't just Derek that had some pause. Casey had been very polite and kind, but she hadn't been as affectionate with this new kid as she had with Michael last year. Emily had smiled and seemed happier, but she hadn't been as clingy as she had with Michael in the past. Derek wasn't sure if that was because Emily had misgivings about this stranger in their midst or if she thought that Michael left the first time because she was too clingy.

And if Michael wasn't quite himself, he had a handy excuse – amnesia. It was like something out of a bad movie, which, oddly enough, was the reason why Derek couldn't reject the claim out of hand.

The only thing that seemed to make sense in all of this was that Michael had finally been bit by the drama-gene that Derek and Sally both had. Well, Sally never directed movies, danced, or acted, but she had been a television personality and she could start a hell of a fight, especially with an audience. So, the drama gene had to be in her as well. That Michael wanted to act, and wanted to work with his father on a big-time project, seemed almost normal, given everything else.

As he walked in the house and toward the living room where Michael spent a lot of his time, Derek found himself pausing at the open door. Maybe he should just take a deep breath and stop questioning that Michael was back with them. He could redo his will (again) and go ahead and cast Michael in that short film based on a script from the Tony-winning playwright.

As Derek opened his mouth and began to cross the threshold into the living room, he stopped as he overhead an on-going conversation. He knew wasn't supposed to hear the one-sided conversation. The mark is never supposed to hear what the hustle was, but, apparently, this hustler had gotten lazy.

"Yeah, it's working like a charm," the kid claiming to be "Michael" said into the phone as he walked into the living room without paying any attention to his surroundings. He was totally engrossed in the phone call. "Any day now, he'll be announcing that he found his son and that he's so happy to have me back."

The stranger laughed after pausing to hear something the caller said. "You are a genius. I mean, I didn't even have to do so much research. Anything I don't 'remember', I can blame on the knock on my head. I almost had the whole family crying when I pulled out the sitting in the hospital alone story. Who cares that I lifted the story word for word from some crappy tween novel-"

The young man stopped as he listened to something being said on the other end of the telephone. "Please," the kid sneered into the phone, "that's not going to get me caught. It's not like it is something Casey Venturi wrote herself. Besides, it is worth it for a little risk. You know how much Venturi is worth! If he accepts me as his son, I'm set for fucking life! And, he can definitely help me break into the biz. With his rep, I'll get cast in any show I want. It's a shame about the stepmother thing though-"

The young man laughed and Derek felt his stomach turn. "No, not that. It's just that she's hot as hell, even though she's older. Dude, I'd let her go all cougar on me. I'd love to pull out my patented charm, but, as the stepson, can't do that. Fucking shame, because I'd love to tap that a-"

Derek was across the room before he realized he'd moved. He'd grabbed the portable phone from the lying fuck in his living room, ending the call and throwing it across the room with his right hand. His left hand had grabbed the stranger by his shirt and pulled him forward violently. "Get out of my house."

"D-d-dad," the charlatan managed to get out. "What are you doing home?"

"Shut up and get the fuck out of my house."

The imposter blinked and tried to look innocent. "Dad, I'm not sure why you are acting this way or what you heard-"

Derek growled, "I head enough to prove that you aren't my son, you wanna-be actor piss-ant. So, stop insulting my intelligence."

As if realizing the game was up, the stranger dropped the innocent act. His body language seemed to change and an ugly sneer took the place of the previous nervous smile. "Why can't I continue to insult your intelligence? It's worked so well this past month."

"Get the fuck out of my house or I will call someone and have you removed."

The young man managed to squeeze out a laugh, even though Derek's hold on his shirt was clearly beginning to choke him. "You wouldn't want to do that, Venturi."

"Why the fuck not?" Derek asked in a dangerously calm voice.

"Because, you don't want to explain to dear Casey and Emily that you kicked out their beloved Michael…again. I mean, I'm helping you keep peace in your household. Keeping all the ladies of the house, well, satisfied, as it were."

All it took was the word satisfied and a replaying of this stranger saying that he wanted to sex Casey up and Derek got physical. He punched the kid so hard, the stranger ended up on the other side of the room. Ignoring the throbbing in his fist, Derek repeated himself, "Get out."

"Fine, I'll leave, after we settle up."

"Wait, after we settle up? What the fuck-"

"Hey, I helped you have a happy home for a month," the stranger pointed out. "You owe me."

Derek stared at the little fuck, amazed at his audacity. "You want me to PAY YOU for lying to us and trying to _defraud_ us? For trying to steal my son's identity?"

"You owe me that at least. And, I doubt you want the story out about how you harbored a stranger in your house for a month. Some out their might even think you endangered poor sweet Emily Venturi-"

Derek growled and took two steps toward the stranger. That was enough for the "actor" to stop talking and back away. From this angle, it was easier to see the beginnings of brown roots on the kid's blond hair. And, it looked as if the punch shifted the contacts in the kid's eyes, showing some green under the brown. So, that wasn't even real.

"Get out," Derek said softly, "or you will be removed by medical personnel."

That and whatever look Derek leveled at the young man seemed to get through to him. Slowing getting to his feet, he said, "Fine. Just let me go pack-"

"Hell, no," Derek said as he herded the stranger to the door, only not touching him because he was afraid he'd kill him. "I'll pack up your crap and leave it for you at my studio, along with a notice that we will never work with you. In fact, I'll make sure that no one in Canada or Hollywood ever does."

"Wait!" the stranger paled as he got to the door. "You can't do that! You bastard! You'll destroy my career."

"That's the fucking point," Derek replied as he pushed the vermin out the door. "You see, you will quickly learn that Venturis always win. And, since you _aren't_ a Venturi, you are shit out of luck. Have a crappy life." Then Derek slammed the door.

He didn't realize he wasn't alone until he heard the soft, "Oh, Derek."

Turning around, he saw Casey standing a few feet behind him. Derek blinked. He opened his mouth to say, well anything. Only to find he didn't have to. Casey just crossed the room, kissed him, and pulled him into a hug. Amazingly enough, she didn't say anything or ask any questions. Derek knew those were coming, but, for right now, he was just grateful for the hug.

He wasn't sure what was worse, losing Michael again or realizing that he hadn't had him over the past month. Either way, although he'd sneered at the imposter that Venturis always win, he once again wasn't so sure that was true anymore.

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_4pm_

Keith knew he had fallen into shocked silence.

"It's very Lifetime movie, isn't it?" Derek said with a laugh that didn't sound amused or healthy.

"My God," Keith finally managed to breathe out.

"Yeah, so there were a few not so happy years in there," the Canadian shared in a massive understatement.

"How in the world did you get through all of this?"

"Work," Derek shrugged. "The huge London history doc I did was released a few months late, after Michael had left. After the whole thing with the asshole…well, that's when I started the whole doc on teen drug use-"

"And when you created HFM?" Keith asked

Derek looked at the producer, apparently surprised.

"Honestly, I don't know more than that. All I know is that you started some foundation last decade. I don't even know what HFM stands for or what it does."

"It's a foundation to help teens sucked into the Canadian drug culture," Derek explained after a pause.

With that answer, things began to fall into place for Keith. Pretty sure he already knew the answer, Keith quietly asked. "And HFM stand for…?"

"Hope for Michael," was Derek's soft response.

"So, with the doc and the foundation, you were…looking for your son?"

Derek shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Not consciously. I wasn't aware enough of how I was f-f-f….how the whole thing was effecting me for it to have been a conscious effort. But, yeah, I was looking for my son. That's not who I found, though."

"Wait, what do you mean?"

"During a special premiere for the drug doc in Toronto, I ran into Sally of all people."

"Sally? Your ex?"

"Yeah," Derek shared. "She came up and congratulated me on the film and mentioned she was there with friends from AA."

"So she had gotten help?" Keith asked.

"So she said. I'm not sure I believed her then…or now. But she was calmer than the last time I had seen her. Of course, the fact that Casey was across the room when she came up to me might have had something to do with as well."

"And after the drug doc was the award-winning blended families piece. I assume that had something to do with Michael as well."

"Yeah," Derek shrugged. "For all the insanity Case and I caused when we were teens in the same house, combining the McDonalds and the Venturis seemed to work that time. My attempted at a family where I was the Dad blew up in my face. Guess I wanted to find out what I did wrong."

Keith wished that moment that he could channel his Amanda. She'd know the right thing to say at that moment. All he could do is raise an eyebrow and hope that would convey to Derek that he didn't need to be so hard on himself. "That documentary did win a lot of awards."

"Yes. It was in the Toronto Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival. It won a Golden Globe. It was nominated for one of your Academy Awards. There were a lot of press appearances related to that project."

Something in the way Derek uttered that last sentence pushed Keith to ask, "How did the press appearances go this time? Given the whole thing with the leak earlier…."

"The Canadian ones were fine. Subdued, but fine."

"I hear a 'but,' in there," Keith prompted after a pause.

"It was the press coverage south of the border. It started, once again, with Entertainment Tonight. It was almost as if they over corrected. To avoid mentioning my missing son; they reported as if I never had a son. All of the talk shows in the States followed suit. To the point where one of those inane shows where a bunch of has-been female reporters sit around and talk pop culture actually called Emily an 'only child'. It was good thing Casey was with me in the green room…because I didn't take that so well."

Keith nodded. "In part because you thought it might hinder finding your son even more?"

Derek blinked and then shook his head. "I don't think I thought about it that much. It was just really important that Michael was still acknowledge and still acknowledged as my son. It has been so long since…since I'd seen him…and…" Derek just broke off and fell silent.

After a few minutes, Keith finally asked, "So what was it like?"

"What was what like?"

"When you saw your son, your real son, for the first time in November; what was that like?"

Derek sighed. "Nothing like I'd thought it would be in my head.

to be continued –


	11. Chapter 10: If You Ever Change Your Mind

**Chapter 10 – If You Ever Change Your Mind…**

"_Just 'cause you killed me when you couldn't stay. I never wished to be somebody else until today….I'll always wish that you were mine. But it's green goodnight. So I'll tell you goodbye. But if you ever change your mind."_

_ - Emm Gryner "Green Goodnight."_

**November 26, 2042**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_4pm_

For the last eight years, November had become family month in the Venturi household. No one talked about why. It was the elephant in the room. Yet none of the Venturis were stupid. They knew what they were doing. In addition, they all did things on November second to remember Michael in their own way. He never asked Casey or Emily what they did. His own ritual…he didn't analyze after the fact, or before for that matter.

On that particular Wednesday afternoon, they had all gathered around some afternoon snack – unfortunately healthy, at Casey's insistence – to decide how to spend the holidays that year. Casey's publisher was pushing for a book tour. Derek was in the finishing stages of a documentary on the history of divorce in Canada. Emily had skating competitions coming up. Derek, however, was determined that they spend some time together as a family around the Christmas holidays. So they were brainstorming.

"We could go somewhere in January," Emily suggested.

"But that's more than a month away! What about Christmas?" Casey had objected.

Just as Derek was about to share his own thoughts on the matter, they were interrupted by the doorbell. Emily, typical teenager that she was, jumped up and rushed to the door. "I'll get it," she insisted in her sprint to greet the visitor.

Casey just shook her head as Derek snorted. "Who in the world does she think is at the door? That Jackson kid?"

"Oh leave her alone, Derek," Casey smiled. "And, it's not like it is impossible for a famous person to show up at our door. Jesse McCartney did drop by that one time. I thought your daughter was going to faint."

"Please don't remind me."

"I thought it was cute," Casey giggled.

"He's old enough to be her father."

"So? He's her Harrison Ford crush. We all have them-"

"And I don't want to hear about yours," Derek interrupted.

"Fine," Casey pouted. "But it was a good one."

"But, anyway, I still don't think anyone 'famous' is at the door," Derek shared.

"And why is that?" Casey laughed.

"Because the A-listers? They call first."

Casey just shook her head as she made a note related to their conversation in her cellberry. Derek still believed that giving Casey a cellberry probably encouraged her organizational OCD, but she'd pouted when she asked and he'd cave. This, of course, was not the story he told anyone else when they asked how Casey got the electronic gizmo as a gift.

Noting that their daughter had been gone for longer than it took to lead someone in the house or tell someone to go away, Derek voiced, "Maybe I should go see who is at the door with our daughter," Derek suggested as he slowly stood and looked for something intimidating to take to the door with him.

He'd forgotten how well Casey knew him as she quickly got up and shook her head. "I'll go see who's at the door. Now sit. Stay."

"I'm not your puppy," Derek teased as he sat down.

"Of course you aren't," Casey laughed. "Puppies are both cuter and less stubborn," she added as she walked out toward the front door. He could hear her warning their daughter to, "Invite whoever it is in, before your father invites himself out," but then she fell silent.

Okay, now Derek really had to know who was at the door. As he walked toward the door, he figured he'd start out by teasing…and letting whoever at the door know that he was home and prepared to protect everyone who lived there. "Is there any particular reason why everyone is clumped around the door?" was Derek's lead question. "If it's that worthless guy that been trying to talk to our daughter-"

"Adam is not worthless, Daddy!" Emily objected from her position on the porch. He and Emily still didn't agree about that older boy who worked at the rink where she skated. Emily thought he was a nice boy and a good friend. Derek thought he was on the make and way too old for his precious daughter. Casey had told him he was worrying over nothing.

But then Derek got to the door.

Casey was pale and looked a little shocked. Emily had attached herself to the man standing on the other side of the open door. The two women had clearly made decisions and reacted very quickly. Derek found that he couldn't.

The familiar stranger in front of him was blond. Clearly in his twenties, oddly enough, the stranger looked surprised, as if he didn't expect to see anyone who was there. It was hard to read the brown eyes that looked so much like what Derek saw in the mirror in the morning. But after that first year, Derek was going to be careful. That first time he'd wanted the blond on the other side to be his son so badly that he ignored his gut. Now, he wasn't sure it was his gut that "recognized" the man in front of him. Besides, if it were Mikey, he shouldn't be surprised that Derek was there if he was coming home, right?

First things first. Derek had to find out who this kid was. So, he decided to start with what he was pretty sure about. Staring at the stranger, he said, "Okay, you are at least twenty-two years old-"

"Twenty-seven," the stranger replied.

That stopped Derek for a second. This time, could it really be…?

"Derek…it's Michael," Casey Venturi confirmed quietly.

For the past seven years, Derek had scripted this scene in his head. Sometimes there were hugs. Sometimes shouts. But always there was some line of acceptance, some Hallmark-like disgusting lovey-dovey sentiment. Half the time, they sound like something out of Casey's books. None of those pretty lines ran through Derek's head. What went through his head was the question of why Michael hadn't just come in the house already. It was his home; that's why he was back, right?

"More reason for everyone to come in the house and not clump around an open door." Derek said as he turned and walked back toward the living room.

As he walked away, he heard Emily begin to quiz Michael. "Driving through, you said? Are you nearby?"

Derek almost stopped to hear the answer. He really almost did, but he was at the living room by that point. He paused and looked at the room that had changed some since Michael was last in the house. A new color on the wall. New furniture. And a new feel to the room. At some point Derek had decided that the living room would show his successes, what he felt he'd gotten right. The mantle was littered with photographs that showcased happy times. Among them was his wedding picture with Casey. Emily's first ice skating exhibition. The picture of him and Mikey with all the members of the championship Leafs. And the only family picture Derek displayed because it was the only one of all four of them.

And over to the right was the awards case. In it were the film awards for Derek's documentaries on blended families and on teen drug use. There was a plaque for the foundation Derek had started to help teens who had fallen into the drug culture, Hope for Michael. In front of him were the things Derek had been doing, first to understand Michael, then to find him. He didn't want to talk about any of it with his son. Not just yet. He wasn't exactly sure how Michael would see these things anyway. At least, that's what he told himself as he turned to block the case as he heard Casey and Michael enter the room.

Michael entered the room tentatively, almost as if he felt he didn't have a right to. In that moment he reminded Derek so much of the scared eight year old boy, still in pajamas, wide-eyed and skittish from having left a drunken party wrecked house. At that moment, Derek found himself asking if 'do-overs' were possible.

Casey invited Michael sit on the sofa, but the young man walked to the mantle instead. He didn't seem to be looking at the pictures too closely until he reached two of Derek's three favorites. Michael was clearly staring at those pictures, but Derek wasn't sure what the young man was thinking.

Apparently, that one thing hadn't changed.

Casey was obviously just as nervous as Derek was, because she began to babble. Clearly the silence wasn't something with which she was comfortable.

"I hope the drive on 403 was smoother than the last time. With all the improvements and everything. Although the traffic from Toronto wasn't nearly as bad as it used to be. So the drive was a breeze, I'm sure. Wasn't it, Michael?"

"Huh?" Michael finally tore himself away from the pictures and turned to face Casey. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Venturi. I didn't hear you."

Derek raised an eyebrow at that. Mrs. Venturi. Neither Derek nor Casey had ever asked Michael to call Casey that.

"I was just asking about your trip," Casey replied. "And…you can call me Casey, Michael."

"I'm a little more comfortable with Mrs. Venturi," Michael shared. It pained Derek to see Casey's face fall at that. So much so that he almost missed Michael add, "And, it's James."

'Huh?' is what Derek thought. Seeing as how Michael didn't immediately come forth with an explanation, Derek found himself (unfortunately) demanding, "What's James?"

"My name," Michael answered. "I don't use Michael anymore."

"Oh, really," Derek replied, stunned. "You answer to Michael for over half of your life and suddenly you want to answer to something else?"

"Yes," Michael replied. Some of Derek's feelings must have been clearly visible on his face because Michael continued with, "I'm not asking for permission. I'm just sharing that I probably won't answer to Michael."

Derek thought it was more that just sharing a little change. What you call yourself is important. There was a reason that Casey didn't hyphenate her last name when they got married and a reason Derek would have fought with her if she had tried. Michael was what Derek had named him. James was something Sally had insisted on; something Derek had been against from the beginning. Was this Michael's way of rejecting Derek again? Admittedly, this time it was to his face and not in a note, but still-

"Derek," Casey broke into his thoughts. 'I'm sure that Mi – I mean James – has a reason for deciding to use his first name," she shared, trying to make Derek feel better.

Of course, because Derek felt like crap, he fought back with words. "Yeah, he's hiding from someone or something I bet."

"Derek –" Casey knew what he was doing, Derek could see it in her eyes. And she was trying to stop him. Before she could say anything else, however, Michael jumped back into the conversation.

"Look," the young man huffed, "I answer to James. Period." Michael sighed. "I really don't see why this is a problem. Mom didn't seem to mind the change when I told her," Michael added quietly, although Derek still heard him. Derek, however, really wished he hadn't.

Honestly, it was a punch in the gut. First that Michael had discussed a name change with Sally (who, of course, would have no problems with James), and, second, that he'd even talked to her recently. Around the pain of that statement, Derek managed to force the question out of his mouth. "You've…you've talked to your mother?" He hated that his voice cracked at the beginning and sounded squeaky at the end.

"Most recently last month," Michael confirmed.

Last month was October, Thanksgiving. It was another Thanksgiving that the Venturis tried to find something non-traditional to do so that they didn't focus on Michael's absence. So, while they were at some book signing in Detroit, Michael was talking to his mother?

"That's…wonderful," It actually hurt to say something that wasn't along the lines of "_why the fuck didn't you call us? We love you, too, goddamnit!"_ But what the hell can you say to that? At that moment, Derek needed something stronger than the coffee he'd had a few hours ago. That, and he needed to get out of the room before he made a scene that would scare Michael and disappoint Casey.

Turning and walking to the kitchen, Derek asked, "I'm getting a drink. Want a beer?"

After a pause, Michael answered "Um…actually, water is fine, if you have it,"

Derek didn't answer, but continued on his way. Just as he reached the dining room, he heard Casey starting up conversation again, "So, Mi- James, how was the drive from Toronto?"

Traffic. Casey was talking to the boy about traffic. In any other situation, that would be fucking funny.

Derek reached the kitchen. Walking up to the island in the kitchen, he almost punched it. Instead, he grabbed in and bent over for a second. His son was back in the house after eight years. That was good. His son was also alive, and apparently not high. That was also good. His son had also apparently started using another name and started talking to his mother. That…well, it hurt. And it made him uneasy. Sure, Sally had claimed to be in AA and cleaning up the last time they saw each other, but was she really?

Derek straightened, went to the refrigerator, and grabbed a beer. He opened it, drank some, and took a deep breath. And that was another thing. For some reason, with all the stuff available in the house, his son asks for water. Derek had toyed with the idea of handing the boy a drink anyway, but decided against it. Going through the motions, without really thinking about it, Derek fixed a glass of ice water for his son, stopping just before he would have dropped a cucumber in the water, like he would have for Casey.

Derek grabbed his beer and the water and walked back to the living room, taking a few minutes to get his head in order. He could give his son the water he wanted, but he wasn't sure he could call his son James. He'd have to call him something, though.

This was why feelings and this emotional stuff sucked.

"Where are they going?" Derek asked as he re-entered the living room, carrying the beverages. He was just in time to see an excited Emily pull Casey out of the room. He shook his head. It had been awhile since he'd seen his daughter smile that brightly.

"Your daughter has decided that I'm staying here and pulled your wife into getting a room ready," Michael answered

"That sounds like Emily," Derek smiled. "She's very determined about some things." Derek handed Michael his water and then took a swing of beer. Swallowing, he added, "We learned what Emily wants, Emily gets."

"Like father, like daughter," Michael shrugged.

At first, that statement put Derek on the defensive. Determined not to do anything to start problems, Derek took another swig of beer before answering. That gave him time to formulate a less knee-jerk answer. "Not with her methods. I think she's a little more like her mother in this."

Michael didn't reply. He snipped the water. Looked down at the glass and shook his head. Again, Derek would have written a huge check to know what Michael was thinking. And the beer wasn't numbing him fast enough.

Michael finally looked over at Derek. To be honest, Derek wasn't sure what Michael would ask him, the question he received was a surprise. "Your wife lets you drink from the bottle?"

"Wouldn't use the word 'lets', but there was a conversation about it," Derek smiled. The first time they had a long talk about what it would be like living together as a married couple Casey actually said, "If I hadn't met Abby, I would have thought that you were raised in a barn!"

"What do you mean 'would have'?" Derek had replied. Yep, it was one of those conversations. Teasing while serious.

This conversation? The first solo conversation with his son in over eight years? This was just awkward.

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_4:20pm_

The waiter interrupted to ask if they wanted more coffee. Keith would have waived him away, but Derek nodded. As the waiter was refilling Derek's cup and mentioning dessert – again – Keith found himself agreeing with his wife that the French had it right. Order a cup of coffee and you have the table all day and wait staff won't hover over you. Of course, earlier, it was near impossible to get Randy over so they could order. Now Randy wouldn't go the hell away.

"This coffee is awful," Derek shared as he started on his third cup.

"That's why I didn't order any," Keith shared. "I always go to Three Cups for coffee before coming here."

"Three Cups?"

"Trendy coffee shop on the edge of the U of C campus. I'll drag you the next time you are in town."

"Cool," Derek acknowledged as he took another sip and made another face.

"So, after the conversation about beverages, what happened?" Keith asked, directing Derek back to the story. Keith had a feeling if he didn't bring the story back up, Derek would never go back to it.

"Pretty soon, Emily and Casey came down to tell him that his room was ready. Michael went up to settle in. He joined us for dinner that night. Not without trying to get out of it, of course," Derek tried to smile. "When Emily and Casey both decide that something is a good idea, you are going to end up doing it. I think Michael had forgotten that."

"Was the dinner conversation any less awkward?"

"The dinner conversation…well, if I were as literary as Casey, I'd probably say something like 'It was the best of times; it was the worse of times'."

"And what would you say as a director?"

Derek shrugged, "Probably that it was too uneven and to cut it. Get the important stuff another way." Derek stared into his coffee cup for a moment. "Sometimes, it would be nice to direct life like you direct a movie."

**November 26, 2042**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

_6pm_

It was errie. That probably didn't sound right, but that is how it felt. It had been seven years since four people had sat down to dinner around this table. It had been eight years since the right four people had sat down to dinner around this table. It almost hadn't happened. Michael had actually suggested that he go eat somewhere else, like this was a hotel. Luckily Derek didn't even have to react to that. Between Emily and Casey, the boy was sitting at the table with a full plate before he knew what had happened. But it was both familiar and strange to have Michael back at the table.

No one talked in the beginning. Derek guessed that was because people didn't want to disturb the picture. It didn't surprise Derek, however, that Casey was the first one to break. It also wasn't a surprise that she interrupted with an idea.

Without any preamble, Casey suggested, "Why don't we invite everyone over to dinner tomorrow?"

"Everyone?" Michael asked in a slightly higher voice. Derek couldn't decide if he sounded confused or panicked. Maybe both.

"Yes, everyone. Mom and George wouldn't mind coming by. Marti would love the break to come visit. And Liz and her husband aren't that far away. I think Ed's still in town, isn't he, Derek?"

"Yeah," Derek confirmed after he swallowed.

"And your mother could probably come in. I'm sure everyone will come. They will want to see…James, after all." Casey, being Casey, honestly tried to remember to use "James" when addressing Michael. Emily, being Emily, continued to call him "Mikey". Derek…still hadn't made a decision on what to call his son yet. But he figured that first he should reign in Casey before she created a huge event for Michael.

"What reason are we going to give them a reason for coming to a huge family dinner? On a Thursday?" Derek raised an eyebrow as he looked at Casey.

"Oh…well, I'm not sure. I guess we can't call it a homecoming, can we, James?"

"No," Michael agreed.

Everyone fell silent for a moment. Like the rest of the family, Derek did want it to be a homecoming. Actually, Derek thought it was a homecoming. Why did Michael come home if he didn't mean to come home? It didn't really make sense.

Casey was making a face while she was clearly trying to think of another plan of attack. She couldn't quite mask all of her sadness with the polite look on her face. She'd asked the question hoping for a yes, Derek knew. With a very clear no, not even a maybe, she probably didn't know what to do next. But that's when Emily jumped in.

"Maybe something celebrating fall?" Emily suggested.

"Or that dinner we never had to celebrate the nomination of your latest documentary?" Casey added, looking relieved at having another idea.

Michael mumbled something about Thanksgiving that Derek didn't catch.

"Excuse me?" Casey asked.

Michael looked up and repeated, "It's Thanksgiving in the States. For some reason, they wait until November to celebrate."

"That's right, they do," Emily confirmed. "The exchange student from the States in my literature class said something about it last month."

"How did you know that?" Derek asked his son. When Michael lived with them, he wasn't all that interested in what the country to south did. So why would he suddenly know about one of their holidays?

Michael shrugged. "I'm just a font of useless information, I guess."

"Well, we didn't get the chance to do a big Thanksgiving dinner last month because of that film festival," Casey jumped in. Derek smiled to himself at how she spun it. They did the book tour and the film festival in October so they wouldn't have to have a big Thanksgiving dinner and notice that Michael wasn't there. But, Derek guessed you couldn't actually say something like that to Michael. Casey continued on with her idea until Michael jumped in.

"It is a lot of effort," Michael began, moving around a little in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. "I wouldn't want to you put yourself out, Mrs. Venturi."

"It wouldn't be a problem, really-" Casey insisted. This time, it seemed that Casey was almost purposely missing the pretty clear "please, don't do this" signals from Michael.

But Michael wasn't going to just let Casey have her way this time. "Besides, I'd feel a little guilty in causing a big family dinner. You probably just had everyone over last month. It's really not a big deal," Michael continued. .

It was interesting that Michael seemed to think that there was a big dinner in the Venturi household last month, even though Casey had just said they didn't do a big Thanksgiving dinner. Derek had to wonder what Michael thought the home life was like he after he left. And if Michael even cared what happened there after he'd left

"Oh, but-" Casey was probably about to share that they didn't have everyone over last month. It was painful to watch Casey try to arrange this huge thing and Michael try to get out of it. He figured he'd help Michael cut a break here. Besides, having the whole family swoop in could be a little overwhelming – even Derek realized that.

"Casey, I think he's saying he'd rather not have a big dinner," Derek said as gently as he could.

"Oh," Casey's polite smile drooped for a hot second before she rallied and forced the sides of her mouth back up again. "Well…okay then. But if you change your mind?"

There could have been a long silence at this point, if it wasn't for Emily. Teenagers are always on to the next thing anyway.

"So, what are we doing after dinner?" Emily asked.

"Well, you're finishing up your homework-" Casey told her, as a familiar discussion began. It always amused Derek. Emily had keener tendencies, which she got from her mother, but she studied in different ways and at different times than Casey had at her age. It was always a running discussion between them about when homework should be started and finished.

"But, Mom-" Emily whined, right on cue.

"No buts. You have practice in the morning-"

"Practice?" Michael interrupted, which reminded everyone he was there. These study discussion had happened after he left home, so no one was really sure how his presence would affect them. "Ballet or Hockey?"

Casey smiled at Michael's question, happy that Michael was taking an interest in his sister. "Emily actually decided, since I was championing dance and Derek was plugging hockey to create a compromise-"

"So neither one of us would get what we wanted," Derek added, convinced that was part of the method behind Emily's madness. She did have this peacemaker gene in her. Derek thought it was something Emily picked up from her Aunt Lizzie, because no one else in the McDonald-Venturi household had a genre like that. Edwin had the bartering and spying genre. Marti had the cute gene, which she always worked to her advantage. And Casey...definitely not the peacemaker gene.

"Ha, ha, Daddy," Emily giggled.

"So, what was the compromise?" Michael asked, actually appearing interested instead of polite.

"Figure skating," Emily smiled. "I'm getting better. I've almost got the triple axel down."

"Figure skating? Really," Michael shook his head and a strange look came across his face. It didn't seem to be a positive reaction. Looking at Emily, it was clear that she was a little deflated by the response as well.

"Yeah, it's a little like dancing…but I'm on skates on the ice, like hockey," Emily explained without the enthusiasm of before.

"Emily," Casey began, trying to cheer up Emily this time, "I'm not sure James knows a lot about figure skating-"

"I wish," Michael muttered. As everyone turned to stare at him, he explained. "Oh…it's just that I have a…friend who is really into figure skating. I get an earful."

That was all Emily needed to launch into the trials and drama of figure skating. Moments like this, you could tell the girl was related to Marti. Derek was glad for the running commentary. First, it did actually seem like Michael cared and knew a little about figure skating. But, second, it gave Derek a few moments to process some things. Michael had a friend who was into figure skating. Was it the "Harry" that Derek had heard about the once while Michael was home, or was it someone else? And how could Derek finesse a conversation to find out who Michael's friends were and where he was living?

Emily could only talk about figure skating for so long before she was back to, "But really. What are doing after dinner?"

Casey had opened her mouth to say something, but Michael jumped in before she could. "You know, I think the flight and driving have finally caught up with me. I'll probably go to sleep after dinner."

"That makes sense," Casey conceded. "What are you plans for tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow?" Michael blinked, as if he hadn't thought that far ahead. If he hadn't thought that far ahead, then he didn't have plans. Seeing an opening, Derek moved to take advantage of it, without trying to seem desperate.

"I could take the day off," Derek began his offer as if it weren't a big deal, "you know, so we catch a game or something. Just in case you can't get decent sports were you are." Maybe that last piece would at least get the boy to share where he was living.

Michael blinked in surprise, but then quickly said. "Oh, no. I'm not going to be the reason a Venturi film was late getting to the public. Hate to hold up progress, and all."

The reason Michael gave surprised Derek. There were only ever two Venturi films that were released after their originally planned release date. The first one was delayed because Derek was dealing with the fact that Michael had left home and no one knew where he was. The second one was delayed because of the asshole who tried to take advantage of him and his family. In general, Venturi films hit outlets on time. But even if this made any project Derek was working on late, he wouldn't cared.

"It's a day. Not a big deal," was what Derek said in hopes to encourage Michael to take him up on the offer.

Michael seemed to shrug away the olive branch. "Anyway, I was thinking of visiting a friend tomorrow," he shared.

"You can always bring the friend with you," Casey suggested. Derek shot her a grateful look. He knew there were reasons he loved this woman, even with all of her OCD need for control.

"Um…that wouldn't quite work," Michael answered...and was he smirking? What did that mean?

"Or your father could come with you to meet up with this friend," Casey modified her suggestion.

"Doubt he'd want to spend all day in a graveyard," Michael shared.

'A graveyard?' Derek thought, not sure what Michael meant.

"A…graveyard?" Casey echoed his thought out loud, sounding just as confused.

A beat later, Emily seemed to have pieced together what Derek and Casey had missed. "Oh, Mikey, I'm so sorry. Were you close?"

Shit. Michael was going to visit the grave of a friend that had died. Shit. That was always hell. Derek still remembered when he went to Sam's grave the first time after the funeral. God, it was hellish. Luckily, Casey was with him. He didn't want her to come; he hadn't wanted anyone to come. Sally, to whom he was still married at that point, hadn't pushed. Casey didn't know how not to push. Thank God she had, though. He'd needed someone…he needed her in that moment more than he knew he would.

During his realization, Derek realized that he'd missed some of what Michael said to Emily. He did hear his son say, "And today's travel is finally catching up with me. May I be excused?"

"Sure," Casey quietly granted permission.

After Michael had left the room, there was silence. Then Emily said, "Poor Mikey."

Derek merely nodded. Burying a friend sucked.

"Derek," Casey began, "I'm not sure…James should go to visit his friend alone."

"I realize that," Derek replied.

"You should go with him," Casey said more directly.

"I can't make him take me," Derek felt inclined to point out.

"You could offer?"

"Would he listen?"

"Maybe at breakfast in the morning, we can talk about it," was Casey's answer.

Dinner wrapped up soon after that. Derek offered, to Casey's surprise, to clear and wash that evening. It wasn't that he was necessarily trying to be helpful. It was just that he needed some time alone, doing something mindless, to try to wrap his head around the day.

In the end, Derek wasn't sure how much good it did him. At least Casey got a clean kitchen out of it.

- to be continued -


	12. Chapter 11: Almost and Never

**Chapter 11 – Almost and Never**

"_Almost saved you and myself. Almost won, but it doesn't count. It never does."_

_ - Tracy Chapman, "Almost"_

**November 27, 2042**

_London, Ontario_

_Canada_

Derek had an uneasy sleep the night before, but it was uneasy for a different reason. For the past eight years, he hadn't slept well because he'd been worrying and wondering about Michael. The unsettled sleep became so common that he barely noticed it. But last night he didn't sleep well because he knew Michael was in the house, right across the hall…for now. That resulted in a whole mess of emotional crap that messed with his shut eye.

For all that he didn't like routines, Derek could admit that routines were good things when you were half asleep. Thursday morning dawned and he trudged through the beginning like it was any other Thursday morning. Part of him knew it was different, however. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Would he run into Michael in the hall in the morning? Would he hear him moving around as he went out to grab the paper? Would Emily go to check on Michael and discover him not there again?

Did he just dream the whole return in the first place?

He was beginning to think the latter as he met his daughter and wife for breakfast. For a moment, he found the bacon and chocolate pancakes a little out of place. It wasn't something that had been fixed for breakfast in the house for years. He was too tired to think but so much about it, but part of his head wondered if he'd just missed Michael at breakfast. That was probably why he just said, "Good morning" and started on the paper. If his head were more in the game, he probably would have had something to say about what his daughter had chosen to wear to school that day.

It was Casey's "Good morning, James," that alerted Derek to the fact that his son has entered the room. "I was just thinking that I might need to send Emily up to get you. Would you like some pancakes?" Casey asked.

"Yes, thank you," Michael said as he sat, ironically in the place where he'd always sat when he lived with them. Derek went back to pretending he was reading the entertainment section. It just another moment that felt like an earlier, happier time. Especially when Casey put the chocolate chip pancakes in front of Michael. She always made these for Michael on special days, like his birthday. It was Casey's first move in the "we love and miss you, Michael" operation that she had probably started planning the moment she realized Michael was at the door yesterday.

After taking a bite of his pancakes, Michael looked back over at Emily in puzzlement, "Wait, I thought Emily said something about having practice this morning?"

"Since you were visiting, I decided to practice after school instead. You know, so I could be around for breakfast and all," Emily smiled. And, although Derek wasn't looking at them, he could bet money that Emily had taken bacon from Michael's plate. She always claimed that it tasted better off of Michael's plate than off her own.

"When are you heading out this morning?" Casey asked Michael. And so, Casey's maneuvering began. Derek knew what she was doing. Derek didn't think a bunch of questions would get him invited along, but Casey wasn't going to let this go until she tried.

"Um…soon, I guess. I hadn't really thought about it. I might need extra time to keep from getting lost." Michael seemed to be perpetually caught of guard by them.

"Lost?" Emily asked

Michael shrugged, "I've only ever been to the cemetery the once, for the burial. And that was years ago. I'm not so sure I'll find it on the first try."

Shit. This was the first time he'd been to see the grave since the service? Derek knew that wasn't something you wanted to do alone. He looked at Casey, whose eyes reflected some of the worry he felt. Looking at his daughter, it looked like she wanted to hug Michael. Turning back to Casey, Derek tried to convey with her eyes to do something so that someone would go with their son.

Casey clearly understood his plea, based on her next statement. "James…your father has lived in London all of his life. He could ride with you, navigate you to where you want to go. I'm sure he wouldn't mind," she finished quietly.

"And still be stuck at a graveyard for hours? Yeah, right," Michael shrugged. "I'll find it. I'll figure it out. I'm used to doing that."

Derek had said something similar when Casey offered to go with him to Sam's grave. He'd even shrugged. At this point Derek wanted to push, he really wanted to push. But he wasn't sure how. At least he could point out that he wouldn't mind spending time in a graveyard with his son.

"There are worse ways to spend a day than at a cemetery," was what he said. And there were. He remembered how he spent the day after Michael left. The first time Michael's birthday had rolled around after he had left. That first Christmas. And then, when that ass-. Derek took a rather savage bite of bacon. He didn't even like thinking of those days then. He didn't want to relive them in his head now.

"Sure, but no one wants a root canal or a five hour French exam," Michael shuttered.

"A French exam?" Derek asked. It seemed Michael had inherited some of Derek's problems with languages, but why mention French of all things?

"I like French," Emily shared quietly.

"You would," Derek would have thought Michael was trying to be rude, if laughter hadn't tinged his reply. Derek almost expected Michael to tack on his custom nickname for Emily, Terror, on the end of that sentence. Instead, Michael added. "I bet you had a much better teacher than I had."

"Madame Davis is great," Emily smiled. "We even have the same name."

Michael coughed at that. "Madame Davis? Really?" Based on his tone, he obviously remembered Emily Davis. It didn't seem like it was a happy memory.

After he'd gotten his coughing under control, Michael turned to look at Casey. "I don't want to be a bother about getting back in. Is there a time I need to return?"

"Oh, well…" Casey stopped to think. "I'll be in and out most of the day. And most of my errands are close. As long as you are back before two or after four this afternoon, the door should be unlocked-"

"You don't lock your doors? Seriously?" Michael was looking back and forth at Casey and Derek like they were crazy. He made not locking doors sound odd. But most of Michael's life, the doors to his home weren't locked before nightfall.

"Not really an issue," Derek replied because it felt like someone needed to answer Michael

"But anyone could walk in! Thieves. Murderers. The press!"

"Now, I don't think a member of the press is the same thing as a murderer," Casey laughed.

"And our neighbors pay attention. We've hadn't had a problem," Derek felt the need to point out. Did Michael feel unsafe for some reason? Is that why there was this sudden focus on locked doors?

"And they won't call the cops on me? You know, since I must be hiding from the law or something," Michael said somewhat snidely. Derek winced internally. That wasn't really what he'd meant or how he'd meant it, even though he was angry when it said it yesterday.

"James-" Casey began, probably in effort to clean up Derek's statement.

"I'll be back by four," Michael cut Casey off as he stood. Surprisingly, he said "Thanks for breakfast," even though he'd barely eaten any of it. Then he walked out of the room, probably on his way to go find this graveyard.

There was a snarky comment floating in the back of his head, but Derek really didn't want to voice it. Instead, he just stuffed more of Casey's pancakes in his mouth. Soon, it was time for Emily to leave. She hugged them both as she left, Casey reminding her to make sure she had her skates. Soon after that, Derek folded his paper and left Casey to her errands.

Initially, he thought he was going to go in to the studio to do work. He even drove in that direction. Instead, he ended up at Tim Horton's. Over doughnuts, Derek read over another pitch from another producer. The pitch letters were beginning to get old, but this one did seem a little interesting. He'd have to follow up with this Lawrence guy at some point.

Derek spent the rest of his day driving around the city. He stopped by Sam's grave, although he wasn't sure why he was there. Maybe it was to someone show solidarity with Michael, at least symbolically. The thing about Sam not being around is that he didn't have a friend who understood what was going on who could knock sense into him if necessary. Derek ended the day at Smellie Nellie's, in the height of the after-school traffic. Luckily he was only going in to pick up something for dessert that night, as a surprise.

As he waited by the counter for the waitress to get his order, he noticed a man sitting in a booth, alone. It looked so much like the older Michael that Derek almost went over. But it couldn't have been. Michael, to Derek's knowledge, never went to Smellie Nellie's as a teen and probably wouldn't go now. This was just probably his mind messing with him, showing him again how he wasn't sure how to fit Michael back into his life again.

Derek came in for dinner before his son. Looking at the load of food on the table, he turned to look at Casey, who was carrying in the salad. "Have enough food, princess?"

"Oh, haha," Casey returned. "This is going to be a nice dinner and I just wanted to be sure that it was special."

"Special or filling?" Derek asked.

Before Casey could reply, Michael joined them in the dining room. His wide eyes pointed to the fact that he was having a similar reaction to the spread as Derek was. This was confirmed when he whispered, "Whoa."

Derek laughed as he moved to the table. As Emily put down the last dish, she and Casey took their seats. Mike asked as he sat down, "Do you eat like this every night?"

"No," Emily laughed.

Casey shrugged, "I just thought some different things might be nice, is all." Derek knew it was more than that, but decided not to comment, but just to sit down and enjoy the food.

Casey had out done herself. She'd probably been planning this since last night. (He had seen some index card on the dresser this morning.) The spread included a Greek salad, Casey's award winning zucchini casserole, Emily's favorite mashed potatoes and gravy, the macaroni and cheese Derek loved, a fruit salsa, and fresh baked rolls. She even made four stuffed tomatoes…and Derek thought he knew what she was trying to do with the tomatoes. The center piece of the meal was one of Casey's specialties, the stuffed pork loin that was Michael's favorite when he lived with them. Like the choice of chocolate chip pancakes this morning, Derek knew Casey's choice for dinner meat was deliberate. If you could say "welcome home" with food, then that was what Casey's dinner did.

After everyone sat, it was quiet for a few moments and people were loading up their plates. There were a few "please pass the" requests, mainly from Casey and Emily. Derek noticed that Michael hadn't yet asked to be passed anything. Derek also noticed that no one had touched the pork yet. Everyone, it seemed, had left the honor of having the first piece to Michael. So what was taking him so long to ask for some?

Derek really had no idea how to ask Michael if anything was wrong, or to let him know that he could have whatever he wanted. Because he couldn't figure out how to phrase what he wanted to say, Derek just said the first thing that occurred to him. "With all of that rabbit food on your plate, you won't have room for any pork."

"Huh?" Michael replied, clearly startled. What was on the boy's mind, Derek had to wonder.

"You know," Casey raised an eyebrow as she looked at Derek, "it's possible that James might want to finish his salad first before partaking in the main course."

Venturi snorted, "And who does that?"

Casey merely cleared her throat and pointed down at her plate. She smiled as she pointed. The two of them had had similar conversations before.

"Okay," Derek conceded, "who, besides you, does that?"

Michael broke in the teasing to insist, "It's a wonderful salad, Mrs. Venturi. And I'm sure it will be enough for me."

That shocked the table into silence. Not the "Mrs. Venturi" title that Michael insisted on using, but the fact that he seemed to be hinting that he wasn't going to eat anything else. The Michael Derek remembered ate a ton of food, much like Derek had at his age. And the pork dish was his favorite.

"You aren't going to have any of the pork?" Derek managed to ask. He had to wonder if Michael thought he wasn't allowed to have some of the main dish from some reason.

"It's Mom's best dish. You have to have some of it," Emily chimed in. Emily was also working to make the dinner work. She'd missed her brother a lot. More than Derek realized, if the smile she had since she saw Michael was anything to go by.

"Are you a vegetarian now, James?" Case asked quietly, raising a possible objection to pork that hadn't occurred to Derek. "I didn't think to ask about dietary needs."

The situation made Derek a little angry, more so at himself than anyone else. Since Michael had been gone, they were no longer sure of what he liked to eat and drink. It was as if they were strangers. Like Michael had registered for some all day meeting and they had forgotten to give him the dietary needs form. Michael was family, his son. Derek should know if Michael was vegetarian, vegan, allergic to pork; Derek should know that about _his son_. Derek's annoyance at this came through in his statement, "This isn't some snooty conference. You shouldn't have to ask him about food preferences!" And they shouldn't. Because they should know. How horrible of a father was he, then?

Michael seemed to ignore Derek's statement, but he did answer Casey. "No, I'm not a vegetarian. I just don't eat pork."

"Did you stop eating pork for religious reasons?" Emily asked. "I've always admired people who have done that."

That comment at least made Michael laugh and lose some of the strained look on his face. "No, I haven't 'found religion'. At least I haven't found one that bans pork consumption. It's just that pork holds some…bad memories for me."

"Oh," Casey said so quietly that you could barely hear her.

Derek was a little floored. This dish used to be his favorite. Now it held bad memories? What did that actually mean? Derek opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it. He wasn't sure what would come out, so, he thought the best thing might be to keep quiet.

Dinner was almost silent after that. No one knew what to say to Michael's little bombshell. Derek noticed that the boy did eat a stuffed tomato, Casey's casserole, the fruit salsa and a roll in addition to the salad. Derek himself ended up eating extra macaroni and cheese to try to ignore the heavy feeling in his stomach. No one touched the pork. So, either Derek would be having pork sandwiches for weeks, or Casey would take the pork to Marti – she'd eat it and be grateful for a night when she didn't have to cook.

After he'd eaten, Michael quietly excused himself. As everyone else looked pretty finished with dinner, Emily volunteered to clear. Casey thanked her and went to her study for a bit to write. Derek went outside on the front porch for a bit to sort through his thoughts.

It didn't help.

Before he knew it, the evening was coming to a close and he and Casey were both back in their bedroom.

"So, dinner was fun," Derek snarked as he and Casey were getting ready for bed that night. He hadn't meant to be sarcastic, but it just came out. Maybe Lizzie was right when she claimed it was a defense mechanism for him.

"Can we not talk about it?" Casey requested.

"Fine," Derek relented.

"It was just awful," Casey continued. Derek wasn't really surprised that she continued to talk about it after she declared the topic off-limits, but what she said next surprised him. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" Derek asked. "Why?"

"Why?" Casey repeated as she slammed the closet door. "You can ask me that?"

"Would you prefer I said, 'huh'?"

"Derek, think about it. The dinner-"

"The dinner?" Derek prompted.

"It was my idea. My baby. And I dropped the ball. Missed the puck. Lost a syllable in the stanza."

"Huh?"

"The dinner strained things. Dinner was a wreck. Everyone was uncomfortable, especially you and James. I feel like that was my fault," Casey explained.

"No. It wasn't your fault, Case. Not at all. It's Michael's…maybe. Or…well, it's not yours." Derek asserted.

Casey sighed. As she was pulling things out of drawers, mainly to return them a few seconds later, she shared, "All I wanted to do was something nice for him. It's been years since he's been home…and I didn't want to treat it like it was just another Thursday. It isn't just another Thursday." Casey took a deep breath that sounded a little watery. Derek walked over to her and hugged, in part hoping that the hug would keep her from crying. His own feelings were so fucked up that point, he wasn't sure he could deal well with her tears.

Casey took a few minutes to pull herself together (which Derek appreciated) before she continued, "I spent the whole day trying to remember what his favorite dishes were when he was here. Then I ran all over the city making sure I had all the pieces. And all that seemed to do was alienate him. This was worse that that dinner that I tried to make my father all those years ago."

"Because you didn't spill anything? Or because you didn't need the fire department to show up?" Derek had asked as he let Casey go so that he could try to smile at her. The questions were to lighten the mood, but Derek also wondered if that had something to do with Casey's reaction. Whatever was wrong in the dinner, it wasn't something that could be blamed on a kitchen mishap.

"Yes. I think that part of it. I didn't want to scare him off, but I thought the dinner would have been a good thing. Maybe…maybe it was a mistake?"

"Mistake?" Derek snorted. "This whole thing with Michael has been a train-wreck from the beginning! Especially on my part. I didn't say or do one helpful thing since the boy walked through the door yesterday. I mean, people accused me of being a screw up all throughout high school, but I never expected to royally fuck up at this level."

"Derek," Casey said sadly.

"And you know the really fucked up part in all of this?" Derek hated how his voice had sounded higher and watery at the end of the question. He cleared his throat and continued. "I had been planning what I would say to Michael if we ever saw him again. I had been planning it for the last eight years. It included things like 'Welcome home' and 'I love you, son'. I had had years to wade through my fucking fff-feelings and come up with some words. Last Christmas, I had even almost put some of them on your index cards."

"Oh, Derek."

"And do I say any of that? Any of that at all, Case?" Derek ran his hands through his hair as he paced. "Three meals. We have had three meals together and I haven't fucking welcomed him once. I have the directions in my mind, but for some fucking reason I'm not following the script."

Casey didn't say anything to that, but he knew she was listening.

"And, just to add insult to injury, Michael had been talking to his mother. For the past eight years I've no idea where the fuck he was. I worried about him everyday damn day. I took on projects that I hoped might help me run into him. And, when he finally decides to show up on my doorstep, he just causally shares that he's been talking to his mother for months! Months!"

Casey walked over to Derek and pulled him into a hug. "I know."

"No. I raised him – we raised him, for a decade, longer than he ever lived with Sally. But he called her last month and not us," Derek voice was still shaking, but the shaking had moved onto his hands. He fisted them, wanting to punch something instead of crying. "Well, shit."

Casey gave him a squeeze, which he eventually returned. After standing in each other's arms in the silence, she asked "So, what do we do now?"

"I wish I knew, princess. You have no idea how much I wish I knew."

If it was any other situation, at all other times, Casey would laugh about how he admitted that he didn't know everything and than sometimes keeners really were the smartest people in the room. But this was about Michael. Michael wasn't just any situation.

Derek did not sleep well that nigh at all. When he closed his eyes, all he could see and dream about were all of things that went wrong with Michael. Casey must have been having similar nightmares too, because she woke up crying and saying "Mikey, I'm so sorry. I'm just so sorry." Derek didn't ask what she dreamt. He just held her as he stayed awake for the rest of the night, hoping the morning would be better.

That alone should have let him know that everything was about to get much worse.

It was her wail that woke them up, not that they were sleeping deeply. The sudden loud cry pushed out any remaining nightmares and had them both sitting up in bed.

"Oh my God," Casey breathed.

But Derek was completing her thought as they both jumped out of bed. "Emily."

The two rushed from their room and first headed toward Emily's room. Like most parents, they were frantic, as Emily hadn't cried like that in years. They had only gone a few steps towards Emily's room when they realized that the sound was coming from another room on the floor entirely.

Emily's crying was coming from Michael's room.

Derek really couldn't remember if he and Casey even looked at each other before they ran to Michael's room and threw open the door.

At that moment, all the impressions Derek had were like the ones he'd get of a set or a scene. The room was spotless and like it had never been occupied. The bed was made, there were no bags anywhere. The only thing marring the room was the scene in front of the bed. Emily was crumbled into a bawl, sobbing. Green currency was in a pile in front of her, as if it fell out of something. A white envelope was lying off to the teeanager's left. She held a note in a death grip with her right hand. Her face was buried in her left hand.

And just like in any movie, Derek knew. He knew something bad had happened. He knew Michael was gone. He knew Michael wasn't coming back. What he didn't know was why. What he still couldn't remember was how he got through the next minutes, the next hours, or the next days after his son had left the second time.

- to be continued -


	13. Epilogue: Blame It on Me

**Chapter 12 – Blame It on Me**

"_Grieving the things I can't repair and willing to let you blame it on me, and set your guilt free. I don't want to hold you back love."_

_Evanescence, "Lacrymosa"_

**April 3, 2043**

_Fredericksburg, Virginia _

_United States of America_

_5pm_

The two men sat in silence for a few minutes. Derek was probably still trapped in the memory. Keith was trying to process the whole story. The entire extremely personal story…which was the most compelling story the young producer had ever heard.

"Now, you see why we can't use it," Derek almost whispered into the silence. I can barely share it, much less direct it."

Keith took a deep breath. "I can see that," he replied.

"But?" Derek asked.

"I think it still needs to be told," Keith insisted.

"Why?" the whisper was so harsh that Keith almost physically felt the Canadian's pain.

"Because we can all learn from it."

"Yeah, on how to fuck up your kids."

"No!" Keith began. Then he paused. "Okay, let's do this," Keith continued after a few beats. "You told me about something where you think you failed. So it's my turn. I'll tell you how I failed my best friend and you'll see why I want to tell your story."

"…I'm listening," Derek allowed.

Realizing he'd offered to share a full story that he'd never even shared with Amanda, Keith briefly closed his eyes. Opening them, he began, "Jamal was my friend since college. We had been through a lot. I was the best man in his wedding. The only reason he didn't return the favor was that he was in China for business when Amanda and I married. He had two children – and had a hell of time with his youngest son.

"Keshown was a mess. Running with a dangerous crowd. Into a lot of bad things. Broke his mother's heart repeatedly. Keshown ran away twice. The first time, it was only for a few hours, because Jamal wouldn't ante up for cellberry. The second time, it was for longer."

Keith paused to stare at his water, finding he couldn't continue his story looking at the director. "In between those times, Jamal tried to talk to me about his fears related to everything around his family. I didn't know what to say to him; Imani was an angel in comparison and Amanda and I weren't ever problem children ourselves. I just said stupid stuff like 'try harder' and 'you'll fix it when he gets back.' When that didn't happen…when Keshown bailed on his family a second time, Jamal didn't take it too well."

"He stopped talking to you?" Derek asked when Keith didn't reply right away.

Keith sighed. "He stopped talked to everyone in a rather permanent way."

Not looking up to see the expression on the Canadian's face, Keith plowed on. "In the note he left, Jamal actually said that he'd screwed things up too badly. That everyone knew it, even his best friend. He 'took responsibility' for it and figured he should at least give his other son a fight chance to not get screwed up.

"And you know the most messed up part about it?" Keith growled. "Keshown came back home, ready to clean up his life and try again, just in time to help his mother bury his father."

"Shit," Derek replied.

Keith looked up at Derek then. "So it probably isn't fair of me to ask you to do this. It probably isn't fair of me to ask to relive this story over and over. It's probably not remotely considerate. But, you see, if there is another Jamal out there. A Jamal convinced that his kid's problems are his fault – that he can't tell anyone because everyone will blame him. And he sees this, realizes that he isn't alone and that if he holds out a little longer, life might get better? That. That's fucking worth it for me. So yeah."

"We could call it that, you know," Derek responded after a few minutes.

"We could call what what?" Keith asked.

"The movie," Derek shrugged. "We could call it 'Everyone Blames the Parents.'"

"Does that mean you agree?" Keith asked.

Derek nodded. "Probably makes me a glutton for punishment. That can be said of all of my best work though." On that note, he rose and threw some money on the table. "So, I'll be touch. Through a Twitter conference?"

"Sure," Keith agreed and he stood and shook Derek Venturi's hand. As he watched the director walk away, Keith sank back down in his seat. He had no idea what he'd gotten himself or Derek into. And yet, if they dedicated the program to Jamal and Michael, maybe it would turn out alright.

He was a lucky father, all told. All he had to worry about with his daughter was the twenty-seven year old to whom she seemed be so attached. Maybe he'd invite that boy to dinner that night and be nice…nicer…nice-ish. Maybe.

- to be concluded in final story -


End file.
